Diabetic Retinopathy: Research
(asked on 18th December 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how much Government investment into diabetic retinopathy research was in 2023-24; and which public bodies provided that investment.
Answered by
Feryal Clark
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Department of Health and Social Care funds medical research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology was awarded £20 million funding for a five-year period starting from December 2022.
UKRI’s Medical Research Council (MRC) also plays a key role in funding underpinning research which may not be attributable to a specific condition but will benefit medical research more generally. UKRI delivers a substantial portfolio of researcher-led projects. This includes a wide variety of areas including physiological, biological, and mechanistic aspects that are applicable to many eye diseases and disorders of vision.
Details of UKRI and NIHR funding on specific areas is provided in the table below:
| NIHR funding in FY 2023/24 | UKRI Funding in 2023/24 |
open-angle glaucoma | NIHR allocated £140,000 for open-angle Glaucoma research in 2023-24 | The total commitment across UKRI in 2023-24 for glaucoma research was £1,209,175 for 3 awards (1 award from Innovate UK; 2 awards from MRC). |
closed-angle glaucoma | NIHR did not commit any specific funding for closed-angle glaucoma research during the financial year of 2023-24. | |
wet macular degeneration | NIHR did not commit any specific funding for wet macular degeneration research during the financial year of 2023-24. | The total commitment across UKRI in 2023-24 for macular degeneration research was £3,941,644 for 11 awards (1 award from BBSRC; 3 awards from EPSRC; 1 award from Innovate UK; 3 awards from MRC; 2 awards from centrally managed UKRI schemes). |
dry macular degeneration | NIHR did not commit any specific funing for dry macular degeneration research during the financial year of 2023-24. | |
diabetic retinopathy | NIHR allocated £977,340 for diabetic retinopathy research in the financial year 2023-24. | The total commitment across UKRI in 2023-24 for diabetic retinopathy research was £1,068,246 for 2 awards (1 award from Innovate UK; 1 award from EPSRC). |
retinitis pigmentosa | NIHR did not commit any specific funding for retinitis pigmentosa research during financial year 2023-24. | UKRI did not commit any specific funding for retinitis pigmentosa research in 2023-24. |
retinoblastoma | NIHR did not commit any specific funding for retinoblastoma research during the financial year of 2023-24 | UKRI did not commit any specific funding for retinoblastoma research in 2023-24. |