Running a clinical trial in the UK? Start with the patients.
For sponsors, biotechs and CROs based outside the UK who are placing a clinical trial here. We count the people with the condition who have joined us near your UK sites, test your materials with them before you submit, then refer the ones who pass your screening questions and say yes, and follow every referral through to randomisation.
Clinical trials in the UK in 2026, in brief.
The UK's updated clinical trials regulations came into force. Ethics and regulatory approval come through one application, combined review, now written into law.
HRA, Transforming the UK's clinical trial landscape.
The average time to set up a commercial interventional clinical trial, down from 169 days, against the government's target of 150 days by March 2026.
HRA, UK clinical trials reach 150 day set-up milestone, April 2026 (data to March 2026).
Of combined review applications received regulatory approval within the 60-day target.
HRA, April 2026.
A clinical trial is expected to recruit its first UK participant within two years of approval, or the approval lapses unless an extension is granted.
HRA, Transforming the UK's clinical trial landscape.
Patients shape the paperwork
The HRA expects public involvement in all research. Participant information developed without it "will not normally receive a favourable opinion" from an NHS research ethics committee.
HRA, checklist for applicants on public involvement and ethical review.
Results go back to participants
Clinical trials involving medicines must be registered in a public registry. Sponsors must publish a results summary within 12 months of the end, and offer it to participants in a way they can easily understand.
HRA, Transforming the UK's clinical trial landscape.
Inclusion is guidance, not law
The HRA and MHRA's Inclusion and Diversity Plan "is not a legal requirement", and its pilot closed in December 2025.
HRA, Transforming the UK's clinical trial landscape.
Where we fit in UK set-up and recruitment.
- Feasibility, the same working day. A free panel count: how many members with the condition we hold near your UK sites, by postcode district, broken down by age, sex, ethnicity and deprivation. It's a count of who has joined us, not a forecast of enrolment.
- Before you submit. Members who live with the condition review your protocol synopsis, participant information sheet and consent form, and you get a report of what they raised and what you changed, written for the IRAS public involvement questions. Patient involvement
- Site choice. Where people with the condition live, from the first part of members' postcodes, and what would make taking part possible: travel, time off work, childcare.
- Referrals, followed through. Members who pass your screening questions and say yes are referred to the site with a best time to call. We follow each one from the first invitation to randomisation, one line per patient each week, and the site hears first about anyone not yet reached. Clinical trial recruitment in the UK
- After the clinical trial. Members can review your lay summary of results, like any other document, before it goes to participants.
Working with us from outside the UK.
Members stay ours
Sponsors never learn who members are: only we, and the site a member says yes to, know their name. Two consents come before any detail leaves us, and the site's informed consent is a third step, never ours.
Eligibility stays the site's call
Conditions are self-declared, with qualifying questions, so a referral means the member passed your screening questions. Whether they can take part is for the site to decide.
Paid for their time, never for joining
Members are paid £27.50 an hour, in line with NIHR's rate for public involvement, for answering our surveys. Never for joining a clinical trial.
We carry the first risk
We haven't made a referral yet, so the first time, referral fees are capped and we commit to a number of referrals after the panel count. Why go first?
Tell us about your clinical trial.
The condition, the people you need, where your UK sites are and when you're recruiting. We'll tell you how many people with the condition have joined us near your sites, and how they break down.