The charity also urges Ministers to take forward plans announced earlier this year for the creation of a new independent Health Research Agency, to streamline and improve the regulation and governance of health research in the UK, and also that an infrastructure strategy to enable access to and sharing of research data needs to be developed.

“The UK offers a high-quality, internationally-respected scientific research base that relies on support from the mixture of public, for-profit and charitable funders,” says the report. “The UK is unique compared to the rest of Europe in the contribution of its medical research charities, with them funding over £1 billion of research annually. A key strength of this environment is the existence of the critical mass necessary to enable research to be conducted efficiently and successfully,” it adds.

Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, says “The continuing complexity of research regulation underlines a pressing need for the government to establish a single regulator that will speed up research. It will mean the UK remains at the forefront of medical research and NHS patients are the first to reap the benefits,” said Prof Weissberg.

Nigel Gaymond, chief executive of the BioIndustry Association (BIA), noted that the report “reminds us of the importance of the funding mix” which “can help make the UK a uniquely brilliant place to develop new medicines,” while Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering said: “the UK is incredibly privileged to have funders like Cancer Research UK supporting science here. If we want them to stick around, the government has to take practical steps to make this country a better place to do research - because you can bet that our competitor nations are going to, even if we don’t.”

CRUK chief executive Harpal Kumar added: “at a time when other countries are increasing their investment in science, it has never been more important to develop a sound science strategy that plays to our unique strengths in the UK, including the NHS, the research charities and our world-class universities, and that will enable us to remain competitive on the international stage.”

Full Story: http://www.pharmatimes.com/Article/11-09-15/UK_needs_strategic_vision_to_maintain_world-class_medical_research.aspx