Frontier Economics was commissioned by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) to explore the value of commercial clinical trials to the UK. We explored benefits to UK patient outcomes, R&D, the NHS, and the UK economy.

Clinical trials are an essential part of the research and development (R&D) of new healthcare innovations including medicines and vaccines. They are also a key contributor to the UK’s economic growth, supporting jobs and skills development across the supply chain and contributing to the attractiveness of the UK for global R&D investment. For the NHS, they are a valuable source of revenue as well as a source of industry-funded treatment.

There has been a recent decline in the number of industry clinical trials initiated in the UK. We found that restoring the UK’s capacity to deliver clinical trials would significantly advance the government’s NHS and economic growth mission, as highlighted in Frontier’s report, ‘The value of industry clinical trials to the UK.’

Key findings include:

• Industry clinical trials generated £7.4billion GVA for the UK economy, while creating 65,000 jobs
• The NHS also benefited from £1.2 billion in direct revenue from clinical trials, with 13,000 of the total jobs based in the NHS
• Our report also estimates the productivity gains from people leading healthier, more productive lives as a result of research-active hospitals providing better care
• Faster access to new treatments following clinical trials helped to avoid three million sick days, worth £0.9 billion to the UK economy

There were also wider non-financial benefits to the NHS from running industry clinical trials:

• NHS Trusts engaged in research tended to have lower mortality rates
• NHS trial locations saw shorter hospital stays for patients and improved patient care experiences
• Participation in research raised job satisfaction among clinicians

We found that if industry clinical trial activity returned to levels comparable with 2017, an increase of 40% on 2022, the benefits to the UK could be even greater. An extra £3 billion would be contributed to the economy including an additional £486 million of revenue to the NHS. This would support 26,000 more jobs, including 5000 more in the NHS.

To deliver on this potential, the ABPI is asking the government to further make further investment, in order to expand patients’ access to industry clinical trials.

Click here to read the full report The value of industry clinical trials to the UK

For more information, please contact media@frontier-economics.com or call +44 (0) 20 7031 7000.