DRUGS giant Pfizer has funded a multi-million pound pioneering new research unit to help people living with chronic pain.

The company, which has its UK headquarters in Sandwich, has joined forces with King’s College Hospital and King’s College London to provide a Pain Clinical Research Hub (PCRH).

Researchers at the new centre, which is at Kings’s College Hospital, will use the latest technology to look inside the brains and nervous systems of people suffering pain.

Their aim is to discover new ways to measure pain, establish the efficacy of new treatments and reduce the time it takes to develop these drugs into new medicines.

Professor Sally Davies, head of NHS research and development, who opened the new unit, said: "The Pain Clinical Research Hub is a vital step forward in developing our understanding of pain, what triggers it, how it is felt physically and the impact it has on the lives of sufferers and their families.

"Research will result in better pain prevention, treatment and management for the hundreds of thousands of people who live with constant and unremitting pain.

"This is pioneering science in an historically under-funded and under-researched area so I welcome the leadership shown by Pfizer, Kings College Hospital and King’s College London."

The public/private collaboration brings together the expertise of researchers and doctors from academia, pharmaceutical research and development and a major teaching hospital.

Pre-clinical scientists from Pfizer will assist the PCRH with their knowledge of pain mechanisms and pathways in the body.

Clinical researchers from Pfizer and Kings will apply their collective experience to innovative clinical trial designs and conduct.