£75m for prostate cancer research

Theresa May, the prime minister, has announced the allocation of £75 million for research on the early diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.

The funding, which May announced during a visit to a hospital in Cambridgeshire on 10 April, will support the testing of treatments and technologies to tackle prostate cancer, including more precise radiotherapy, high-intensity focused ultrasound and cryotherapy.

As part of the £75m programme, over the next five years the National Institute of Health Research will recruit 40,000 patients into around 60 studies on prostate cancer, according to a government press release. The studies will target groups with a high risk of developing prostate cancer such as black men, men aged over 50 and men with a family history of the disease. A spokeswoman for the NIHR told Research Fortnight that the £75m are new money allocated by the Department of Health.