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Eight research and development projects, including recycling nuclear fuel to be used as cancer therapies, will be backed by £74m in government and industry funding to make medicines manufacturing greener.
In a statement published on 18 November 2025, the government said it was awarding more than £54m to the projects through the Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation programme, which is funded through the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicine Pricing, Access and Growth (VPAG) investment programme.
The projects will be further funded with £20m from industry, and £9.9m of the funding will be directed towards ‘Project Alpha 10.6’, which focuses on how to recycle fuel used in nuclear power stations into new cancer therapies.
As part of the project, researchers will use a radionuclide called ‘lead-212’ to create treatments called ‘targeted alpha therapies’. Radionuclides are already used in medical scans to diagnoses cancer and other conditions.
In a statement also published on 18 November 2025, the UK National Nuclear Laboratory and Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) — which is leading the project — said: “Lead-212 could offer hope to patients with cancers that are currently hard to treat by targeting and destroying cancer cells with minimal damage to healthy tissue and reduced side effects.
“A tiny amount of lead-212’s parent material — equivalent to a single drop of water in an Olympic-sized swimming pool — is extracted through a series of chemical reactions. An even tinier amount of lead-212 is taken from this sample, which, when developed under the right conditions by scientists at MDC, could treat thousands of patients.”
The UK has large reserves of lead-212, which means that the approach could be scaled up for cancer treatments for patients in the UK and worldwide, it added.
Chris Molloy, chief executive of the MDC, commented: “Lead-212 is an untapped national asset with extraordinary medical potential. By developing therapies from this uniquely sustainable source, with no additional waste, our consortium has the ambition to improve cancer care for patients and to position Britain once again at the forefront of medicinal radiochemistry.”
Another project funded through the programme involves ‘A sustainable future factory’, led by AstraZeneca UK, which will integrate robotics, automation and AI to create sustainable medicines manufacturing processes,
Funding is also earmarked for a project that looks at recycling anaesthetic gases, which produce around 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents each year.
Commenting on the announcement, Joe Edwards, director of UK competitiveness and devolved nations at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said: “The pharmaceutical industry’s investment into this programme shows our commitment to modern and sustainable manufacturing practices.
“We are backing the innovative ideas needed to build a resilient manufacturing base for the UK and improve how medicines are made.”
