Government launches £100m fund to use AI in tackling ‘big healthcare challenges’

A new mission announced by the Prime Minister will accelerate the use of AI in life sciences to tackle the biggest health challenges of our generation.

In a speech on Thursday, the Prime Minister announced that a £100m in new government investment will be targeted towards areas where rapid deployment of AI has the greatest potential to create transformational breakthroughs in treatments for previously incurable diseases.

The AI Life Sciences Accelerator Mission will capitalise on the UK’s strengths in secure health data and AI. The Life Sciences Vision encompasses eight ‘critical’ healthcare missions that government, industry, the NHS, academia and medical research charities will work together on at speed to solve, from cancer treatment to tackling dementia.

The £100m will help drive forward this work by exploring how AI could address these conditions, which have some of the highest mortality and morbidity. For example, AI could further the development of novel precision treatments for dementia.

This new government funding for AI will help us harness the UK’s ‘world-class’ health data to quickly identify those at risk of dementia and related conditions, ensure that the right patients are taking part in the right trials at the right time to develop new treatments effectively, and provide better data on how well new therapies work.

By using the power of AI to support the growing pipeline of new dementia therapies, the best and most promising treatments can be selected to go forwards, and patients can receive the right treatments that work best for them. AI driven technologies are showing ‘remarkable promise’ in being able to diagnose, and potentially treat, mental ill health.

For example, leading companies are already using conversational AI that supports people with mental health challenges and guides them through proactive prevention routines, escalating cases to human therapists when needed, all of which reduces the strain on NHS waiting lists.

This funding will help us to invest in parts of the UK where the clinical needs are greatest to test and trial new technologies within the next 18 months. Over the next five years, mental health research is set to be ‘transformed’ through developing ‘world-class’ data infrastructure to improve the lives of those living with mental health conditions.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “AI can help us solve some of the greatest social challenges of our time. AI could help find novel dementia treatments or develop vaccines for cancer. That’s why today we’re investing a further £100m to accelerate the use of AI on the most transformational breakthroughs in treatments for previously incurable diseases.”

Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Michelle Donelan added: “Safe, responsible AI will change the game for what it’s possible to do in healthcare, closing the gap between the discovery and application of innovative new therapies, diagnostic tools, and ways of working that will give clinicians more time with their patients.”

By Matthew Neville – Senior Correspondent, Bdaily

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