Education and Science minister Nuno Crato has announced EC funding of science in Portugal to the tune of a billion euros until 2020.
Crato explains that the government wants to guarantee scientific funding, and so increase investment in investigation and development.
Reacting to the news, André Janeco, president of the association of funded scientific investigation, said he would believe it when he saw it. Very often grandiose plans are announced, he said, but the “many millions” were not always delivered. In fact, when the chips came down, what comes through to investigators more often than not “are peanuts”.
New Portuguese diabetes medicine to be tested in the US
Meantime, a new medication produced by Portuguese bio-technology company Technopage is to be tested in the United States. TP-102 (its preliminary code name) is the first biological medicine ‘made in Portugal’ to be tried out on humans in the US. It is aimed at preventing the tragic need to amputate limbs of diabetic patients after the onset of infections – a classic side-effect of the disease.
Every year a quarter of diabetic patients suffer infections, and in Portugal alone an average of 1,500 amputations take place every year.
Data shows that 13 people die every day from diabetes in Portugal, and the national health service spends upwards of €1.5 million on treating patients per year.
Technopage’s new remedy, if seen to work, could spell new hope for diabetic patients throughout the world.
