The Belfast Regional City Deal (BRCD) will provide approximately £1bn of investment for the Belfast region over 15 years.
One of the innovation projects within the BRCD is the Institute for Research Excellence in Advanced Clinical Healthcare (iREACH), which is a people, NHS, academic and industry ecosystem centred on the innovative design and delivery of Phase I/II innovation programs through to relevant real-world evidence trials and complex interventions.
iREACH will build a wider healthcare ecosystem to support the development of new treatments that will be rapidly assessed in early phase R&D programmes. This will allow the Belfast region to leverage additional industrial investment and funding for R&D, attract and retain skilled individuals to ensure sustainability in the Life and Health Science (LHS) sector, drive economic growth and ultimately deliver better treatments to patients in NI.
The iREACH infrastructure will provide the environment and physical spaces to support business and the commercialisation of innovations, with differing spaces and levels of support available for large businesses, new spin-out/ start-ups, NHS clinical trials services and for public engagement.
PHA R&D Division and Department of Health NI (DoH) have been integral to the development of the business case for iREACH.
The total capital cost of IREACH is £46.6m. PHA R&D Division will contribute funding of £5m over 10 years and will have a role at leadership level and share in the outputs from iREACH.
for more information click here to go to iREACH Health | About | Queen's University Belfast (qub.ac.uk)