Our Future Health, which is planned to be the UK’s largest ever health research programme, is aiming to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of diseases.
The research programme, which has welcomed its first public volunteers, aims to recruit up to 5 million adults from across the UK to accelerate research across a range of diseases and health conditions.
The aim of the research, Our Future Health outlines, is to develop new methods to treat, detect and prevent diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and strokes.
In the Our Future Health statement, the programme highlights that 59 per cent of those aged 65 or older in the UK have two or more serious conditions or impairments.
The research programme has announced that it has received £100 million in financial support from various life science companies such as AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and Illumina, to support the delivery of innovative products that will enable the programme’s success.
Professor Sir John Bell, Chair of Our Future Health, said: “Progress in tackling the growing burden of chronic disease depends on strong collaboration across the life sciences sector and health system. We’ve certainly seen how powerful it is during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the rapid development and deployment of vaccines, diagnostic tools and treatments into the NHS at unprecedented speed and scale.
“Our Future Health is designed to harness the power of collaboration. The combination of support from industry and charities that we’re announcing today, alongside our existing funding from the government, means we’re on track to build Our Future Health into a world-leading health research programme.
Dr Andrew Roddam, CEO of Our Future Health, added: “Millions of people in the UK and around the world spend many years of their later life in poor health. Our Future Health aims to tackle this and help people live healthier lives for longer, by creating the UK’s largest ever health research programme to prevent, detect and treat diseases. ”
