It’s wonderful to see new funding for life sciences in the UK being announced, but the amount is tiny compared with the potential of the industry. I think its obvious to most people that life sciences and material or nanotechnologies will be vital to the 21st Century economy, and more effort on diagnostics, therapeutics and sustainable manufacturing (biorefineries, green chemistry etc) is needed.
Science Minister David Willets was quoted as saying ”We are backing the risk takers, and are willing to take a risk ourselves.”
This will probably get his backside kicked up & down Whitehall as the official UK Government response is invariably “We are committed to reducing the deficit and will not and cannot take risks with public money.” It is the unfortunate nature of adversarial politics that the failures are highlighted in preference to successes.