LONDON — The push for translational medicine got a boost in the UK last month when the government announced that it would devote £775 million ($1.2 billion) over five years for translational research focusing on high-priority disease areas such as cancer, heart disease and dementia. This funding cycle represents a 30% increase on the first round of such grants, which began in 2007.

“It's not a massive amount of money, but it's a realignment of priorities,” says Chris Torrance, chief executive of the translational genomics company Horizon Discovery based in Cambridge, UK. “In a period where other people are taking cuts, it's significant,” he adds.

The funds will be made available from April 2012 through the UK National Institute for Health Research, the research arm of country's National Health Service (NHS). The National Institute for Health Research currently has a dozen Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) and 16 Biomedical Research Units (BRUs) in leading NHS and university partnerships.

Future funding is not restricted to existing BRCs and BRUs already in place at universities and hospitals. “It is entirely possible that new partnerships may arise as a result of this funding,” according to James Hotson, a spokesperson for the UK Department of Health. “All NHS providers in England in collaboration with their university partner are eligible to apply.”

Jonathan Weber, deputy principal of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London, says that the government is wise to continue doling out funding for translational work through the BRCs. Past funding through this channel “has allowed us to develop new facilities for experimental medicine and train clinical researchers,” Weber told Nature Medicine. “It has also enabled us to give project support to new drugs, devices and diagnostics arising out of our basic science laboratories, moving these products into clinical investigation in patients.”

Torrance, whose company aims to facilitate the development of personalized medicine in the form of cell lines that, for example, model cancer genotypes, explains that translation is not only needed by patients but also creates an area of opportunity around which the UK can build a sustainable high-tech economy. “There's so much information now that needs to be translated,” he says.