Alumni engagement and philanthropy



NEW PRECISION MEDICINE CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE WILL IMPROVE PATIENT TREATMENT 

5 December 2017

A new £10million Centre of Excellence in Precision Medicine, which will focus on improving treatment for cancer patients, has been launched by Invest Northern Ireland and Queen’s University.

The Centre of Excellence in Precision Medicine will develop an internationally accredited laboratory focusing on diagnostics which can be used to predict a cancer patients’ response to treatment. This will allow potentially costly drugs to be used more effectively by being prescribed only to those who can benefit from them.

The Centre will be located at the Centre of Cancer Research and Cell Biology at Queen’s. Invest NI has offered £5.8m of support towards the £10m project. It will create 17 new roles attracting average salaries of £48,000.

Making the announcement, Invest NI’s Chief Executive, Alastair Hamilton said: “This new Precision Medicine Centre will provide access to R&D facilities for both local and international companies.

“It has the potential to develop ground-breaking treatments for cancer patients and will further enhance the personalised medicine and oncology research sector in Northern Ireland. While initially research will focus on cancer, this could extend into other areas of precision medicine in the future.

“Northern Ireland has a strong and internationally recognised Life & Health Sciences sector, which boasts globally renowned leaders including Almac and Randox. The Centre will contribute to the continued international recognition of Northern Ireland based research in this field.

“The Centre will also create 17 new high quality roles which will generate over £800,000 in annual salaries for the Northern Ireland economy.”

Queen’s Acting President and Vice-Chancellor Professor James McElnay said: “Queen’s is at the forefront of Molecular Pathology, biomarker validation and test adoption in the UK. This Centre of Excellence brings a unique dimension to the bridging of academia and industry, making the fabric of our biotechnology sector in NI and the UK as a whole significantly stronger.”

Media enquiries to Sian Devlin Queen's Communications Office on tel: +44 (0)28 9097 5292.  

Caption: Alastair Hamilton (right), Invest NI, pictured with Professor Manuel Salto-Tellez (left) and Professor James McElnay from Queen’s at the new Centre of Excellence in Precision Medicine

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