Sir George Cox sets out his response to the challenge of exploiting the UK's world-class creative capabilities more fully

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, and the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, today set out measures to improve the nation’s health and increase the nation’s wealth by making the UK a world-class environment for medical research, development and innovation, through a programme of investment and reforms that enable high quality and cost-effective medical advances to be discovered and developed quickly, cheaply and reliably.

The biomedical industry – through Sir David Cooksey, Chairman of the Industry Reference Group of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration – have responded to these reforms with a willingness to grow significantly their investment in medical R&D in the UK involving the National Health Service by up to an additional £1 billion per year in the medium to long-term – an increase of roughly 30 per cent.

As the next stage in the science and innovation investment framework 2004-2014 – and as a result of the recent Department of Health consultation on their strategy Best Research for Best Health and the excellent work of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration – the Government will put in place a series of measures that will help to make the UK a world-class environment for health research, development and innovation. This framework includes:

a commitment to implement key measures proposed in Best Research for Best Health, including the establishment of a new National Institute for Health Research to join up the existing institutions and efforts within the broader National Health Service, together with new support for medical research centres of excellence, and a boost to clinical academic careers;
a new commitment to develop the capability within the NHS National IT System to facilitate, strictly within the bounds of patient confidentiality, the recruitment of patients to clinical trials and the gathering of data to support groundbreaking work on the health of the population and the effectiveness of health interventions; and
a series of further reforms to improve performance and streamline unnecessary regulatory procedures that hold back the research community, including a single, IT-based data portal to ensure researchers only encounter procedures and input data once, and national roll-out of a number of model agreements to standardize approvals and permissions.

The Government is also committed to take firm action to deal with campaigns of violence and intimidation of animal rights extremists, and have made significant progress to this end over the last year. The Government will continue to work with the industry and its suppliers to maintain this progress in the future.

Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said:

“British biomedical companies already lead the world in applying research - contributing £3.7 billion to our exports. And our National Health Service has, over the last fifty years, pioneered some of the great medical breakthroughs: the world’s first ever test tube baby; magnetic resonance imaging, the MRI that allows early detection and treatment of potentially life threatening diseases; the first combined liver and bone marrow transplant. How much stronger we will become from the announcement today – thanks to the work of Sir David Cooksey – of a strengthened clinical research partnership linking our universities, our biomedical companies and our NHS.”

Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Health, said:

“Health research provides us with the means to tackle the increasing challenges which disease and ill health are placing on our society. It also plays a key role in the knowledge economy of our country through its contribution to international competitiveness and economic growth. Without a vibrant health research system, England’s ability to deliver on this agenda will be severely compromised. That is why the Government is committed to making the UK the best place in the world for health research, development and innovation.

“Today’s announcements set out the means by which the Department of Health will ensure that the NHS contribution to Health research is a centrepiece of that ambition.

“The changes proposed are radical. However, we believe that they are essential to create health research system in which the NHS supports outstanding individuals, working in world-class facilities, conducting leading-edge research, focused on the needs of patients and the public.”

Sir David Cooksey, Chairman of the Industry Reference Group of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC), stated in response to this package of reforms:

“Members of the UKCRC Industry Reference Group believe that this action by the Government is vital to reverse the decline in clinical research and clinical trials activity that has occurred in the UK over the last few years. However, if we succeed in implementing the agenda to improve NHS clinical research activity, bringing on stream the R&D component of Connecting for Health and substantially curtail the activities of animal rights extremists, members of the UKCRC Industry Reference Group believe that the right conditions will have been set in place to allow us to grow our investment in medical R&D in the UK very significantly. In aggregate they believe private sector investment in R&D involving the NHS should start to rise again. We believe it would be likely to rise by as much as £500 million a year in the short / medium term and around £1 billion a year in the medium to long term.

“This marks the start of a new partnership between Government and the biomedical industry that recognises the mutually advantageous relationship that exists and we will work together to invest in science and innovation for the future. This will greatly enhance patient care at the same time as strengthening the biomedical industry.”

The Secretary of State for Health will announce further details early in 2006, when the Department of Health publishes the Government’s health R&D strategy.

Notes for editors

1. The biomedical industry – including the biotechnology and medical devices sectors – employs around 73,000 people in the UK, with a further 25,000 jobs in the wider supply-chain. The industry contributes around £3.3 billion per year in R&D expenditure – representing 70 per cent of all medical-related R&D in the UK, and around 23 per cent of total manufacturing R&D expenditure.

2. The UK is starting from a strong position on medical R&D. The UK has a strong track record on medical discovery and development – from the discovery of penicillin, the DNA double Helix and DNA profiling techniques, to the mapping of over a third of the human genome (more than any other country in the world – including the U.S.). The UK also has a strong and growing science base, with over 90 Nobel Prizes in science, and supported by the Government’s Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-2014.

3. The UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) – established in Budget 2004 – is a partnership of organisations working to establish the UK as a world leader in health research, by harnessing the power of the NHS. The aim of UKCRC is to re-engineer the environment in which clinical research is conducted in the UK. Dr Liam O’Toole is the Chief Executive of UKCRC, and Sir David Cooksey is Chairman of the UKCRC Industry Reference Group. More information can be found at the UKCRC website at: http://www.ukcrc.org/.

4. The details of the measures contained in the Department of Health’s forthcoming Best Research for Best Health strategy are:

the establishment of a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to join-up existing institutions and efforts within the broader NHS to create a clear strategy and ensure coherence for quality publicly-funded health research;
strengthening research programmes with new NHS funding schemes to make public research funding more responsive and innovative;
the establishment of around ten major Centre Grants, by competitively selecting half from premier research hospitals with strengths across a range of clinical areas, and half from hospitals specialising in specific clinical areas, to lead scientific translation and innovation;
a clear funding stream to support technology platforms for patient-research in the NHS;
a single, IT-based data portal to streamline regulatory and approval procedures so that researchers only encounter regulatory procedures and input data once; and
support clinical academic careers, creating around 250 Academic Clinical Fellowships and 100 Clinical Lectureship training opportunities per year.

5. The Department of Health’s recent consultation Best Research for Best Health can be found on the Department of Health website at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/. The consultation closed for responses on 21 October 2005, and the Government received over 500 responses. The Secretary of State for Health will announce further details early in 2006, when the Department of Health publishes the Government’s health R&D strategy.

6. New measures will also be developed as part of the Department of Health’s new R&D strategy to further strengthen the environment for medical research. These are:

ensuring the capability will exist within the NHS National IT System to facilitate, strictly within the bounds of patient confidentiality, the recruitment of patients to clinical trials and the gathering of data to support work on the health of the population and the effectiveness of health interventions;
building on the existing clinical research networks to ensure capability exists to create a Clinical Trial Clearing House function to act as a “one-stop-shop” for industry to make informed decisions about the feasibility and suitability of a trial site, raise the public profile of clinical research and the health benefits of participating, and act as a matching service between willing volunteers and clinical trials in appropriate circumstances;
further efforts to streamline regulatory and governance processes for clinical trials – rationalising NHS Trust R&D regulatory approvals and permissions through introduction of a standard R&D application form and a single “Lead” Trust R&D sign-off for multi-site trials; together with a national roll-out of the National Costings Initiative to make clinical trials costs more transparent; and national roll-out and use of the model Clinical Trials Agreement by Trusts and companies for UKCRN multi-centre trials; and
the publication of performance data for NHS Trusts relating to patient numbers, speed and quality, to provide a source of information on reliability on which to base judgements about the location of clinical trials.

7. The Government’s Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-2014 can be found on the Treasury website.

8. Department of Health media enquiries to Claire Rhodes 020 7210 5238.

9. HM Treasury media enquiries should be addressed to Will Straw at the Treasury press office on 020 7270 4420.