GlaxoSmithKline to provide funding for bioelectronic medicine research

GlaxoSmithKline has announced a new fund that will help to support academic groups and small companies in their efforts to develop bioelectronic medicines.

The $5 million (3.1 million pounds) Innovation Challenge Fund will further encourage and advance collaborative research in this field, which centres on the creation of treatments that utilise miniaturised implantable devices to alter electrical signals passing through the body.

Coming as part of the company's Bioelectronics Innovation Challenge, the work carried out using this funding will be made freely available to the global research community, which will help to accelerate the development of new technologies.

The new commitment comes in addition to the firms' prior commitment of a $1 million award for the team that first solves the challenge.

Moncef Slaoui, chairman of global research and development and vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline, said: "We see the development of bioelectronic medicines as a collaborative process that will only be successful with the combined skills of world-leading engineers, physiologists, neuroscientists and informatics experts."

This comes after the firm allied with the UK and South African Medical Research Councils last month on a new project to study non-communicable diseases in Africa.