FST JOURNAL

The UK has always been a world leader in clinical research, but maintaining that position is increasingly difficult in a globally competitive world.  To address this challenge, the Government recently published Saving and Improving Lives: the Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery, its new policy paper on ways to ensure the UK remains an attractive home for clinical trials.  However, for this strategy to be a success, it needs to make sure the UK is delivering the most cutting edge, early stage, research as well as large Phase 3 trials.

To look at this in more detail, on 30 April, the Foundation for Science and Technology and Silence Therapeutics supported a roundtable discussion, which was chaired by Lord Patel and attended by a number of leading scientific and policy making experts from across the UK. 

Participants heard from representatives of the Department for Health and Social Care as well as the Office for Life Sciences. They discussed how the Government could implement the new strategy in order to reduce the bureaucracy facing early stage clinical trials by introducing a more risk-based approach to approving research, while learning from the rapid approval and delivery of the COVID-19 vaccines.

Further details about the discussion, and the policy recommendations that attendees suggested, will be published shortly on the Foundation’s website.  More details will be provided in the next edition of FST Journal.