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UK research in the time of COVID-19

Medical Content Team        March 1, 2021

The BrightTALK webcast ‘Coordinating and delivering research in the pandemic: The UK approach’ was organized by pharmaphorum in association with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and held virtually on 25 February. It offered an interesting glimpse into the decision-making process that leads to prioritising and funding clinical research in the UK. Four panelists (Phil Troke, Gilead; Kirsty Wydenbach, MHRA; Terence Stephenson, HRA; and Nick Lemoine, NIHR Clinical Research Network) discussed how this process had to adapt in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and how learnings from this experience are likely going to inform future research.

It was particularly insightful to hear about the concerted, multidisciplinary approach that allowed efforts and funding to rapidly pivot towards research focused on COVID-19. The NHS played a crucial role, from its privileged position of fully integrated provider of social and primary care in both community and hospital settings. From the beginning it established a continuous, close collaboration and dialogue with the NIHR, which enabled a substantial workforce to be redirected towards new priorities in response to the pandemic.

The UK government involved experts across many disciplines from the outset, leveraging an expertise as varied as possible to ensure a fair and focused choice of projects to prioritize. And alongside the relentless effort of experts and NHS/NIHR workers, the great spirit of collaboration of UK citizens made it possible for more than 780 COVID-related pieces of research to be not only approved, but also carried out successfully. Over 80% of citizens who were asked whether they would be interested in participating in clinical trials declared that they would, and more than 700,000 patients and healthy individuals were recruited into COVID-related studies. These helped inform diagnostic, prophylactic, and therapeutic approaches that were later deployed across the globe.

It was underscored that all protocols were approved on an expedited, extremely tight schedule, but as rigorously as ever. The current working model has been deemed too intense to be applied sustainably post-pandemic, but all agreed that COVID-19 inspired a new way of working and approaching research.

Many lessons can be learned and applied when the pandemic is resolved, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, not only to virology and vaccine research, but also to studies investigating other conditions. In particular, three pillars emerged from the discussion that have the power to inform research prioritization and funding in a way that would greatly accelerate the work of the scientific and clinical communities and improve patient lives: more dialogue, more collaboration, same high standards.

 

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