UCLH patients get early access to new treatments via clinical trials

We also recruited the first participant in Europe on four occasions, and the first participant globally in two commercial trials.

The figures, for the period April 2024 to March 2025, highlight UCLH’s ability to align with commercial sponsors, attract clinical trials into the UK, agree expectations on trial set up and then progress rapidly to offer the trials to patients. The length of time it can take to set up and recruit to commercial trials has been highlighted by the life sciences industry as a critical area where the UK needs to improve its clinical trial performance.

Clinical trials in cancer and neurology are particularly prominent in UCLH’s list of ‘firsts’, as are complex early phase trials, which enable us to offer new groundbreaking treatments to our patients.  The global firsts in commercial trials at UCLH include:

• recruiting the first participant to an international trial in frontotemporal dementia, one of the most common causes of early-onset dementia
• recruiting the first patient to a global trial of an investigational medication for adults with Huntington’s Disease.

Working with industry is an important part of UCLH and UCL’s research strategy including in commercial sponsored trials which are crucial for developing and bringing new drugs and other interventions to diverse populations in the UK.

It is one way in which UCLH and UCL, with underlying support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) UCLH Biomedical Research Centre and Clinical Research Facility, are supporting the ambition of the UK government to make the UK the best place in the world to do clinical research

UCLH and UCL also have a very active portfolio of trials that have been developed by our clinical and academic staff and sponsored at UCL/UCLH - enabling more patients to access potentially helpful treatments. Recent examples include recruiting the first participant to a global study of a new drug in early development for Alzheimer’s disease, which is thought to reduce the production of a protein in the brain called tau, and the first recruit in a precision medicine study for patients with cancer in the biliary tract cancer.

Dr Nick McNally, Managing Director of Research UCLH/UCL and co-Director of the NIHR UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, said: “Through these recruitment firsts, we are helping to make sure that patients can benefit from being part of research quicker than before. Working together as a leading NHS-university partnership, UCLH and UCL can offer industry partners world-class scientific and clinical expertise, a highly skilled and flexible research delivery workforce, world-class infrastructure including dedicated space for studies, efficient trials set-up systems and diverse patient populations.”

Find out more about commercial research at UCLH and UCL.

Companies and contract research organisations interested in working with UCLH and UCL should in the first instance contact: uclh.commercial-research@nhs.net.