The UK is positioning itself as a leading choice for clinical research.
Alongside streamlining its legislative framework to offer greater efficiency, accessibility
and innovation, the UK government is pushing for improvements to contracting and review processes. The aim is to bring about drastic reductions in the timetables to set up a trial, while maintaining the safety and quality of the system.
The Financial Times has reported (subscription required) that a pilot programme reduced set-up times for an mRNA norovirus vaccine trial from almost nine months to just 70 days.
This product type benefits from the Vaccine Innovation Pathway set up in 2024 as the UK’s first clinical trial delivery accelerator. This sits alongside the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad (CVLP) as part of a set of initiatives aiming to fast-track clinical research in selected areas of innovation.
The Vaccine Innovation Pathway is a structured framework designed to streamline the development, testing, and deployment of vaccines. It involves multiple stages, including preclinical research, clinical trials, regulatory approval, and post-market surveillance. The pathway encourages partnerships between government agencies, academic institutions and companies.
The UK Government has also committed substantial funding to support the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad, recognising its potential to revolutionise cancer treatment. This funding is being used to support research and development, clinical trials, and the establishment of state-of-the-art facilities. The initiative also aims to attract top talent from around the world to work on this groundbreaking project.
Streamlining clinical research is a being addressed from many angles, from regulatory reforms and process improvements to greater cooperation and facilitation across the NHS. The UK’s ambitious NHS 10-year plan includes a promise to cut clinical trials setup time to 150 days by March 2026. As this is rolled out, the intention is to enable patients to enrol in clinical trials using the enhanced NHS app. The interactive Costing Tool (iCT) provides a standardised pricing model for commercial contract research, while the standard contract templates and the combined review process for ethical and regulatory approval also support swift set-up for clinical trials.
The improvements demonstrated by the latest approvals show that these systems are having a real impact and should help to restore UK clinical research to pre-pandemic levels.
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