The British government is investing £750 million ($1.1 billion) to bolster the ailing biotech industry and other commercial science and technology sectors.
The new Strategic Investment Fund "will encourage exports, support inward investment, promote research and development and harness commercially our world-class science base," linkurl:Alistair Darling,;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistair_Darling Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, said today (Apr. 22) in his linkurl:budget speech;http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/bud_bud09_speech.htm to parliament. "The small and medium sized companies that make up the bioscience sector in the UK have been hit hard by the current financial crisis," linkurl:Clive Dix,;http://www.bioindustry.org/cgi-bin/contents_view.pl?SITE_ID=343 chairman of the BioIndustry Association, said in a statement. "It is essential that the fund is now implemented rapidly." The linkurl:Technology Strategy Board,;http://www.innovateuk.org/ the leading public agency for supporting business innovation, will receive £50 million ($72 million) of the fund to invest "in areas which have high potential to drive future growth, such as low-carbon technologies, advanced manufacturing, and the...
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