This week we welcomed Lord James O’Shaughnessy to the University of Birmingham to showcase Birmingham’s transformational research and leadership in clinical trials, diagnostics and health data – underpinned by the Birmingham Health Partners ecosystem of which PHTA and BHIC are proudly part.
A Member of the House of Lords since 2015, James served as Parliamentary Under Secretary for Health and led efforts to improve innovation within the NHS and to grow the UK’s life science and health tech industries. Most recently, he was commissioned by Government to conduct an independent review aimed at resolving key challenges in conducting commercial clinical trials and transforming the UK commercial clinical trial environment.
As one of the leading centres in the UK for clinical trials, Birmingham is not only uniquely placed to fulfil all of the recommendations raised within the review, but is actively working to do so already.
Professor Pam Kearns, Director of the world-leading Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit, detailed our ‘Fit For Filing’ approach – a paradigm shift in collaborative trials between academia and industry. This allows industry partners to work together with Birmingham’s specialist trial management teams to develop studies which answer research questions in areas of unmet medical need, while also generating data that can contribute to the licencing of a drug or regulatory approval of a device. This new approach can be applied to both early phase trials and practice-changing registration level clinical trials and is set to speed up the adoption of drugs and devices in the clinic.
Pam is also spearheading a new Birmingham Health Partners programme – funded from across its membership – which will implement innovative change in R&D processes to streamline trial set up and delivery across BHP, aligning well with the O’Shaughnessy Review but extending to academic as well as industry trials.
L-R: Professor Michael Lewis, PHTA Board member and NIHR Scientific Director for Innovation; Professor Alex Richter, Director of the Clinical Immunology Service; Professor Gino Martini, PHTA CEO; Dr Kath Mackay, Chief Scientific Officer – Bruntwood SciTech; Professor Pam Kearns, Director of the CRCTU; Professor Dipak Kotecha, Consultant Cardiologist and Digital Trials Director, West Midlands NHS Secure Data Environment; Lord James O’Shaughnessy; Professor Liz Sapey, Director of PIONEER – the Heath Data Research Hub for Acute Care; Professor Neil Hanley, Head of the College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham; Professor Lorraine Harper, Birmingham Health Partners Research and Health Innovation Director.
Director of the Clinical Immunology Services Professor Alex Richter then emphasises that in order to deliver precision medicine, the NHS requires a step-change in capability and access to precision diagnostics and data integration. Via the CIS – which will be based within PHTA – and BHP, Alex’s team are working to identify clinical need for diagnostics from direct-to-consumer testing through to primary and secondary care diagnostics – as well as facilitating the adoption of diagnostic solutions with supportive data and clinical pathways.
PHTA’s CEO Professor Gino Martini commented: “Today’s showcase ably demonstrated that Birmingham is a destination of choice for clinical trials, diagnostics and health data. This is due to the fact that we not only have huge breadth and depth of clinical-academic expertise, but we also have a ecosystem convened by Birmingham Health Partners that allows and encourages those experts to work collaboratively. This multidisciplinary, boundary-breaking expertise is available to likeminded businesses and entrepreneurs who want to come and work with PHTA – and develop innovations that will drive health improvements and economic growth.”
