‘Cultural sniffiness’ over profit is hurting NHS drug trials

Some NHS staff need to “get over cultural sniffiness” about profit motives to work with pharmaceutical and tech companies to reverse the steep drop in UK clinical trials, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has said.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Streeting laid out a plan to improve patient outcomes by putting clinical research back at the heart of the health service, ahead of the release of a government-commissioned report into the decline in trials.

His pitch comes as Labour’s plans for the NHS and social care come under greater scrutiny, with health set to be a key battleground in the next general election, which must be held by January 2025.

“It’s no bad thing that people coming up with new ideas, new inventions, new treatments, are in the private sector. I think we’ve got to get over some cultural sniffiness there,” said Streeting, criticising the “inherently suspicious” attitude of some on the left and in the NHS towards profit motives.

While stressing Labour’s commitment to a publicly funded health service, free at the point of use, Streeting said it had to work in partnership with pharma and tech companies to run more trials.

“The NHS can’t lose hundreds of millions of pounds of commercial trial income almost accidentally and not be bothered about it,” he said, adding that ministers had been “asleep at the wheel” over the UK’s position in life sciences.

Ahead of the party’s launch of a healthcare “mission” in coming weeks, Streeting and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on Friday discussed improving cancer care and early diagnosis of the disease with leading researchers from academia, industry and charities.

The number of clinical trials in the UK has declined by 41 per cent since 2017, according to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, with the country slipping from fourth to tenth in the list of the most popular countries to hold late-stage trials.

In March, a high-profile partnership with Swiss pharma group Novartis to roll out a drug for lowering cholesterol was scrapped because many GPs were unwilling to prescribe it. Some experts said the GPs’ reluctance was partly the result of distrust of the pharma industry.

Streeting said practical reasons also needed to be “overcome” to improve the drug trials landscape.

If elected to government, Labour intends to create a standard system for trials and rolling out successful drugs across the whole of the NHS, following companies’ criticism of the current set-up’s fragmented nature.

Streeting said the party’s plan to double the number of medical school places and boost training for nurses and midwives would free up time for more clinicians to work on research.

He said Labour would also make it easier to participate in clinical trials by using the NHS app to contact willing patients, describing as “outrageous” the government’s failure to tap the hundreds of thousands of people who consented to take part in trials for the Covid-19 vaccine for other studies.

Large pharma companies have warned that a sharp rise in a tax on drug costs, the increase in corporation tax and the difficulty of introducing innovative products into the NHS are all reducing the draw of investing in the UK.

Streeting accused the government of putting the UK’s position as a leader in the sector in jeopardy.

“Some of our life sciences leaders sometimes find the government looking and acting almost actively disinterested, and shockingly complacent about some quite significant investment decisions. And as a result, there are undoubtedly jobs and investment and contracts that have gone elsewhere,” he said.

The Department of Health and Social Care said it was building a life sciences vision “to tackle some of the biggest public health challenges facing the UK, backed by £113mn”.

“We have already delivered our commitment to launch innovative new healthcare missions, which will improve health outcomes for patients across the country,” it said, adding that the review into clinical trials would help “find new ways to speed up diagnosis, enhance treatment . . . as well as cementing our position as a life sciences super power”.