Hot Topic: Can the UK fix its clinical trial woes?

The UK has had real problems attracting firms to do clinical trials here in the last few years.

The number of trial-starts dropped by almost half between 2015 and 2021 – from around 700 to 400.

That was partly because a huge amount of capacity was diverted to Covid-related studies like the RECOVERY and REMAP-CAP trials in the pandemic.

These trials saved millions of lives around the world, and showcased what we can do here. So it’s ironic they might have cost the UK in commercial terms.

But these Covid trials weren’t the whole story. There have been loads of complaints about: slow trial starts, recruitment difficulties, a perceived lack of willingness from some NHS hospitals, and problems accessing NHS data.

At the same time, other countries like Spain and China have really upped their game.

The result is that the UK fell from being one of the world’s most popular destinations for commercial clinical trials in the mid-2010s, to dropping out of the top 10.

This matters for two reasons.

First, because of the hard cash trials bring into UK PLC.

And second, because of the many positive knock-on effects. A strong clinical trials footprint helps strengthen the whole life science ecosystem – and it means Big Pharma is more likely to invest here long term.

So what’s being done? The National Institute for Health and Care Research – NIHR – is the government body responsible for this area.

It’s just held an interesting webinar with One Nucleus describing its efforts. The link’s below, so take a look.

In short, I’d say the NIHR is now trying to provide a much more hands-on, almost concierge like service – one which delivers trials faster, and where hiccups and hurdles get ironed out quickly.

NIHR says the average time from regulator green light to trial start – which has been a real bugbear – is now 122 days and is dropping further.

Recruitment into commercial clinical trials has been on the up in the last year or two as well. So hopefully things have turned a corner.

But there’s plenty to do. Better use of data, and better ways of screening and selecting patients, are a couple of important items on a to-do list that the ABPI put together in a recent report. The link’s below as well.

Thanks for watching another Optimum Hot Topic!