Written question WQ97555

The Welsh Government is committed to improving cancer outcomes and recognises the importance of a strong cancer research base.

Each year, Welsh Government provides the NHS with approximately £18m to fund an extensive Wales-wide research delivery infrastructure – including dedicated healthcare professionals – to support patient participation in clinical trials. The resources required for each study vary. Individual cost breakdowns at study level are not collected.

Since April 2022:

• There have been 378 cancer studies open in Wales, 25% of the 1,539 portfolio studies open during that period.

• There were 81 open studies relating to brain, liver, lung, oesophageal, pancreatic or stomach cancer, 21% of total cancer studies.

Through our direct Health and Care Research funding schemes, £3.94m has been allocated to 14 cancer studies since 2021-22:

Less survivable cancers

Number of awards

Amount of funding

Brain

1

£166k

Lung

1

£230k

Stomach

1

£136k

Other cancers

Blood

1

£66k

Bowel

2

£259k

Breast

2

£604k

Cervical screening

1

£538k

Kidney

1

£453k

Lymphoma

1

£286k

Prostate

1

£600k

Skin

1

£250k

Various - immunotherapy

1

£356k

We also fund research centres, which provide underpinning infrastructure to help Wales-based researchers develop new research and compete for research funds. Two of the centres – the Wales Cancer Research Centre and the Wales Cancer Biobank – are cancer-specific, receiving £7.23m of the overall five-year £50.8m investment. The Advanced Neurotherapies Centre, one of our world-leading research centres, also has a brain cancer workstream.

All cancer researchers in Wales can access trial design support, health informatics and health economics support from our Health and Care Research Wales-funded centres. The Cancer Research Strategy for Wales provides a strategic platform for co-ordinating cancer research, and offers opportunities for brain, liver, lung, oesophageal, pancreatic, and stomach cancer research across all six priority themes.

Welsh Government research funding is offered through open, national, peer reviewed competition, with health and care need, and policy, practice and public/patient benefit assessed, alongside the scientific quality of bids received.

Ultimately, the Welsh Government is a small research funder within the UK and international health and care research landscape. It is important researchers in Wales can collaborate with researchers internationally and look to larger research funders for appropriate resources for the kind of research required. This is particularly the case with ‘less-survivable’ cancers, where ideas are needed from across the global research community, and rarer forms of cancer where patient numbers are small and international collaboration is required.

In 2024, we welcomed Cancer Research Wales’ £5m investment in the Brain Tumour Research Initiative and we co-fund the Cardiff Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre with Cancer Research UK.