To improve the research space in the UK, there needs to be a push for other types of research beyond commercial clinical trials, a National Health Service (NHS) research director has said.
In May 2023, Lord James O’Shaughnessy released a report about commercial clinical trials in the UK after the country witnessed a 44% reduction in commercial clinical trial initiation between 2017 and 2022, dropping from fourth to tenth as global contributors.
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The report highlighted several ways in which the space needs to be reformed, including a push for primary care to be more involved in research. At the NHS Confed Expo, held at the Manchester Central Convention Centre on 12 and 13 June, Dr Alison Austin, deputy director of research for NHS England, emphasised the importance of primary care’s involvement in commercial research but said that this is only one of the cogs in the research machine.
“Lord O’Shaughnessy’s report focussed on commercial research, but we think what you need is really a broad range of research. Yes, you need commercial research, but you need non-commercial research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), charity-funded research, and commercial research led by NHS investigators. We need to see a good spread of research across the NHS,” Austin said.
Austin said that NHS England has four key areas to work on to improve research – increasing scale, increasing pace, increasing diversity and system guidance and assurance.
Austin also spoke about how NHS England is trying to engage patients in clinical research, including the utilisation of the NHS app that includes a section where patients can opt into the ‘Be Part of Research’ scheme. She spoke about how the number of patients opting to be involved in research has increased since this was launched, with approximately 80% of sign-ups to the scheme coming directly from the NHS app.
The NHS is also working at prioritising research in line with the service’s long-term plan, focusing on indications and therapy areas such as stroke, mental health, learning disabilities and oncology, which are areas in which the service is also focussing on beyond research.
Given the drop in the UK’s global contributions and a backlog in 2023 with trial set-up times, some sponsors have been apprehensive about bringing trials to the UK.
A report by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) published in November 2023 showed that the total number of industry clinical trials initiated in the UK per year rose by 4.3%, from 394 trials in 2021 to 411 in 2022.
In the same report, the ABPI reports that the UK’s position in global clinical trial rankings remains unchanged from last year’s report. The UK came fourth for the number of Phase I trials (79), sixth for Phase II (150), and tenth for Phase III trials (182).
