UK Prime Minister turbocharges medical research

The UK’s Prime Minister has announced action to accelerate the discovery of life-saving drugs, improve patient care and make Britain the best place in the world for medical research.

The government and the Wellcome Trust will invest up to £600 million ($766 million) to create a new Health Data Research Service. This will transform the access to National Health Service (NHS) data by providing a secure single access point to national-scale datasets, slashing red tape for researchers.

Clinical trials will also be fast-tracked to accelerate the development of the medicines and therapies of the future, with the current time it takes to get a clinical trial set up cut to 150 days by March 2026 – where latest data collected in 2022 was over 250 days. This will be achieved by cutting bureaucracy and standardising contracts so time isn’t wasted on negotiating separate details across different NHS organisations, and ensuring transparency by publishing trust level data for the first time.