£30 million world-class Advanced Therapies Centre to be hosted at Guy's and St Thomas'

King’s College London has been awarded £10 million by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to establish a state-of-the-art Advanced Therapies Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’.

The Centre, which is also supported by £20 million in funding from private sector and non-profit organisations, will develop cutting-edge experimental treatments with the aim of producing new treatments for patients fighting diseases like cancer and diabetes.

Bringing together world-leading academics and clinicians, the Advanced Therapies Centre will be developed by King’s College London in partnership with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College London, and is expected to open in 2018.

The Centre will occupy two floors of Guy’s Hospital Tower, increasing the size of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Experimental Medicine Hub from 10 to 12 floors of the Tower.

Amanda Pritchard, Chief Executive of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The new Advanced Therapies Centre, along with the facilities and expertise of our NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, will enable our clinical teams and their academic colleagues to lead the search for new and better personalised treatments for patients with conditions such as cancer and diabetes.”

In addition to the UKRPIF award, the Centre also received £20million of support from GSK, Cellectis, the Innovate UK Cell & Gene Therapy Catapult, and the Charité Research Organisation.

Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson said: "The UK's world-renowned leadership in science, research and innovation is helping to solve a range of national and global challenges, and the breadth of the projects funded today means this will continue.

"Through our Industrial Strategy and £4.7 billion investment for research and development, we're ensuring we capitalise on the great work taking place in universities across the UK and remain at the forefront of innovation."