Osborne opens new Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine

Osborne opens new Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine; Osborne being introduced SOTGeorge Osborne MP (Chancellor) speech SOT- It is a real honour to open this new Imperial Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine. It is what this country’s vision for the future of life sciences is all about. This new Centre rises to the challenge of ensuring we remain a world leader in life sciences – and I want to thank Keith O’Nions, Eliza Manningham-Buller, Anthony Newman Taylor, Richard Sykes and Mark Davies for all their hard work in making it happen. The future is academic research, clinical practice and industrial application coming together. Indeed the very words you use to define your particular mission get to the heart of the challenge we face. First, your mission is described as translational medicine, translating research discoveries into clinical practice. We are all familiar with the argument that Britain is great at the original creative ideas but not always so good at applying them. The cliché, whilst not always fair, does have a kernel of truth. We can be slow to get our best ideas out into the wider world to be implemented or commercialised. When it comes to medicine, the creation of the NHS brought many benefits but it had the unfortunate effect of severing some of the close links between teaching hospitals and local universities. There has recently been a sustained attempt to rebuild these links. Imperial’s structure linking hospitals to the university is a great example of these new links. We still need to do more to ensure that the NHS is an early adopter of ideas emerging from our universities and research labs. That is why it is so important to deliver the proposals by Sir David Nicholson to ensure the NHS backs innovation. We owe it to our medical researchers who have come up with the smart ideas. We owe it to companies in the life sciences sector who have commercialised them. Above a...