As part of the Regenerative Medicine Programme, the Technology Strategy Board, the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) are to invest up to £8m in collaborative R&D projects in the area of regenerative medicine tools and technologies. The intention is to establish consortia, potentially leveraging previous investments, that address generic challenges in the development of cell based therapies and will lead to demonstrators with commercial applicability.

We intend to support key platform tools or
technologies to:

• demonstrate product safety and/or
  efficacy for regenerative medicine
  therapeutics
• address manufacturing challenges.

Applications must be industrially led and, in general, be expected to consist of academic, industrial and end-user collaborators.

The competition opens on 14 March 2010. We anticipate that most funding will be allocated to proposals undertaking basic (up to 75% of total project costs) or applied research (up to 50% of total project costs). We anticipate supporting three to four substantial consortia and a number of smaller consortia.

Please note, there are 3 streams for this competition: 1) demonstrate product safety and/or efficacy; 2) address manufacturing challenges; 3) both demonstrate product safety and/or efficacy and address manufacturing challenges. Please ensure that you select the correct stream in the drop down box on your application form.

The original version of the brief included the words ‘feasibility studies’, which was incorrect and has now been removed in the available brief. The Tools & Technologies competition is open to Collaborative R&D projects in the area of basic research, applied research or experimental development.