PM pledges £200m for life-saving treatments to be developed in UK

The Government is to inject £200 million into UK companies developing life-saving treatments for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s, Boris Johnson has announced.

The Conservatives said the funding would unlock a further £400 million in private investment, enabling life sciences companies to commercialise successful new products without going abroad.

Ahead of the opening of the Tory party conference in Manchester, Mr Johnson said: “The UK has the best universities in the world and we have a proud history of scientific discovery, from penicillin to sequencing the human genome.

“But too often we let another country commercialise this discovery. I want the lifesaving cancer treatments of tomorrow to say ‘discovered and made in Britain’.

“That means allowing enough late stage capital to be mobilised so that these science discoveries do not have to go overseas to be commercialised.”