The BioIndustry Association (BIA) welcomes the announcement by Lord Mandelson that the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) will invest £5.3 million over the next five years in a Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Regenerative Medicine at Loughborough University. The centre will also receive £3 million from 28 industrial and government partners.

The Bioscience Innovation and Growth Team Review and Refresh of Bioscience 2015, published in January 2009, called for investment in the emerging regenerative medicine industry, which offers the possibility of cures, rather than life-long treatments. The Government's New Industry New Jobs proposals and the Office for Life Sciences' Life Sciences Blueprint also recognised that high technology manufacturing, such as that required in the regenerative medicines field, will be crucial to the UK's economic future

"This announcement about investment in regenerative medicine further exhibits the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the cutting edge science coming from the UK’s innovative life sciences sector is turned into the world-leading treatments of the future," said Clive Dix, BIA chairman.

Richard Archer, Chair of the BIA's RegenMed Industry Group Advisory Committee, said: "The EPSRC’s investment in regenerative medicine complements the recent announcement by the Technology Strategy Board about funding for collaborative research in regenerative medicine."

Established in 1989, the BIA (BioIndustry Association) exists to encourage and promote a financially sound and thriving bioscience sector within the UK economy and concentrates its efforts on emerging enterprise and the related interests of companies with whom such enterprise trades.