Health and Medical Research in the UK
UK health and medical research has earned a high profile in recent years, and rightfully so. From Nobel-winning research conducted by the MRC, to the NHS’s world-renowned work on Health Technology Assessment, the UK has proven to be one of the best places in the world for medical and health research.
The UK has long been a great location to conduct clinical trials, providing high standards of scientific research and clinical care as well as a beneficial regulatory environment. This UK is now becoming an even better place, with concerted efforts being made by the government, to drive a new targeted NHS R&D Strategy, Best Research for Best Health, which launched in early 2006.
A decision was announced in Budget 2006 to create a single research fund of at least £1 billion, jointly-held by the Secretaries of State for Health and Trade & Industry;
with the aim of building on recent reforms, including the creation of MRC Technology and the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC).
The government has addressed a need to maintain and build on the UK’s world-leading position in producing peer-reviewed, scientist-led ‘basic’ medical research and innovation in clinical research; the priorities and needs of the NHS, ensuring health R&D generates improvements in health outcomes, and building on successful applied research programmes, such as the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme and MRC Technology;
Throughout the UK there exists numerous Centres of Excellence for conducting clinical research across a range of specializations, including the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Institute of Cancer Research and Imperial College, London. Figures published by the Office of Science and Innovation in 2006 showed that the UK research base has outperformed the US in key areas of the life sciences for the first time. The UK's share of citations in biological sciences and pre-clinical and health related sciences has risen from 11.5% to 12%, ranking third in the world and first among the G8 nations.
A key player and contributor to medical research in the UK is education institutions and universities. In 2003/2004 clinical medicine accounted for nearly £700 million in research income to higher education institutions. This outstripped any other research field.
Also making a valuable contribution is the NHS. 90% of research in the NHS is undertaken by clinical academics. The UK's strength in research makes a vital contribution to patient care. It is also highly marketable to multinational pharmaceutical companies investing in clinical trials in the UK.
A number of medical research organizations also play pivotal roles in key in the UK:
The Medical Research Council (MRC)
The MRC is a national organisation funded by the UK tax-payer. Its business is medical research aimed at improving human health; everyone stands to benefit from the outputs. The research it supports and the scientists it trains meet the needs of the health services, the pharmaceutical and other health-related industries and the academic world. MRC has funded work which has led to some of the most significant discoveries and achievements in medicine in the UK. About half of the MRC’s expenditure of approximately £500 million is invested in its 40 Institutes, Units and Centres. The remaining half goes in the form of grant support and training awards to individuals and teams in universities and medical schools. The Medical Research Council supports medical research in three main ways:
- Through its research establishments
- Providing grants to individual scientists
- Supporting those in relevant post graduate study
The Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. Established in 1936 and with an endowment of around £11 billion, it is the UK's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research.
Cancer Research UK
Cancer Research UK raises funds for cancer research programmes. The website provides on the programmes they are involved with and fundraising work currently underway.
Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC)
Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) works to advance any such charity whose principal activity is to raise funds for medical research in the UK.
Medical Research and Clinical Trials Regulatory Environment
Clinical trials in the newly expanded European Union, which now has 25 Member States with a population of 450 million, are harmonised by a single Directive. The Directive requires that all clinical trials are conducted to the recognised international scientific and ethical standards of good clinical practice. The UK transposed the Directive into regulations that came into force on 1 May 2004. They create an environment, which protects clinical trial participants and assures reliable results while not inhibiting the development of new medicines.
To read more about the EU Clinical Trials Directive (2001/20/EC), click here
Clinical Trials and Clinical Research Funding
In 2005 the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UCRC) released a UK Health Research Analysis report, which provided for the first time an overview of health research in the UK. It shows the distribution of spending on all types of health research across all areas of health and disease.
Analysis of the distribution of the combined research funding across the eight main Research Activity Codes indicates that one third of spending is concentrated in Underpinning research, aimed at understanding normal functions and processes. Aetiology, which includes all studies into the risk, cause or development of disease, also represents one third of the total spend. The remaining third is spent on research into diagnosis of disease, development and evaluation of treatments, disease management and organisation of healthcare. A total of 2.5% of funds is dedicated to research focused on the primary prevention of disease. The report shows that the distribution of funds across different types of research activity varies between individual funding organisations and across different areas of health and disease. Of the total research funded, 25% is applicable to all diseases or relevant to general health and well-being, whilst 75% relates to research that can be attributed to specific diseases and areas of health.
For the research funding that is specific to individual areas of health and
disease, two thirds of the aggregate funds are spent on Cancer, Neurological, Infection and Cardiovascular research. In general the pattern of research funding follows the ranking of burden of disease as measured by Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) rates for the UK. Exceptions to this trend were observed in the areas of Respiratory, and Oral and Gastrointestinal, where the comparative research funding is lower than the relative burden of disease and for Infection, where the relative research funding is higher than the UK DALY ranking.