Technology and innovation

Life sciences explained

What is the role of life sciences in England's health and care system, and why do they matter?

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Authors

Charlotte Wickens
Policy Adviser
Anna Charles
Senior Fellow

Charlotte Wickens
Policy Adviser
Anna Charles
Senior Fellow

Advancements in science and technology provide opportunities for better care for people, and the UK life sciences sector has an important role to play in realising these opportunities.

The 10 Year Health Plan for England 2025 sets out that to get the NHS back on its feet and prepare it for the future ‘world of genomics, artificial intelligence, predictive and preventative medicine’, collaboration between the NHS and the life sciences sector will be vital. With the Life Sciences Sector Plan and the 10-year Modern Industrial Strategy, the government has also outlined significant economic ambitions for life sciences, including that the United Kingdom will be the leading life sciences economy in Europe by 2030, and the third most important life sciences economy globally by 2035, after the United States and China. These plans and strategies underline the meaningful opportunity the government sees to enhance the nation’s health and economic prosperity, through encouraging and supporting investment in the life sciences sector and strengthening partnerships across life sciences and the health and care system.

Although life sciences offer significant promise for improving health outcomes and driving economic growth, they also present complex challenges. These include ethical considerations, for example around data use; the possibility of overtreatment; rising costs and the potential for resources to be diverted from other areas of care; and the risk of widening health inequalities if access to innovation is uneven.

For patients and the public, the promise of life sciences lies in earlier diagnosis, more personalised care and improved outcomes. But these benefits must be delivered equitably, transparently and safely. Realising the benefits of life sciences will therefore require careful management of the challenges and risks, and a commitment to inclusive, equitable implementation.

This explainer outlines:

what life sciences are and their role in England's health and care system
life sciences’ impact
who the key players and partners are
the government’s ambitions for the sector as set out in recent plans and strategies
key challenges and risks for the future.

About this explainer

Life sciences’ policy and infrastructure differ between England and the devolved nations of the UK, reflecting distinct regional governance structures, priorities and strengths. These differences are not covered in this explainer, which focuses on the role of life sciences in England's health and care system and the relevant supporting policies and infrastructure.

This explainer was part funded by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association (BIVDA). The research, analysis and writing were conducted independently by The King’s Fund and we retain full editorial control. The case studies presented in this explainer were provided by the Health Innovation Network from their case study repository.

What do we mean by life sciences?

What are life sciences?

The term ‘life sciences’ is used in a variety of ways. In this explainer we use it to refer to the application of research, innovation and technology to improve human health. This spans research and innovation that seek to understand, prevent, diagnose, treat and cure disease. It covers a broad spectrum of activities, including:

scientific research and development, ranging from discovery to clinical trials
manufacturing and supply
the implementation of innovations into clinical practice.

It also covers a broad range of technologies/products, including:

pharmaceuticals – ranging from generic medicines that have been available for a long period of time, such as many commonly used antibiotics and statins, to newer treatments, such as immunotherapy and curative cell and gene therapies
vaccines – including those used in routine childhood immunisations and other vaccination programmes, and newer developments such as mRNA vaccines
health technologies (‘healthtech’)/medical technologies (‘medtech’) – ranging from single-use consumables such as syringes and gloves to complex hospital equipment like surgical robots, to medical devices and digital health products such as remote patient monitoring equipment and health apps
diagnostics:
- imaging – using medical imaging techniques, such as x-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) scans and digital pathology to guide diagnosis and/or treatment
- testing – using tests to detect diseases, monitor health or guide treatment decisions, including in vitro diagnostics (tests performed on samples taken from the body such as blood, urine or tissue) and molecular diagnostics (analysing DNA, RNA or proteins to help identify a disease, a variant of a disease as with Covid-19, or the risk of developing a disease, such as cancer); genomic testing is a subset of molecular diagnostics, which involves analysing a person’s DNA to identify genetic variations to help diagnose a disease, identify the risk of disease or guide treatment options.

Who is involved in life sciences?

A successful life sciences sector relies on an ecosystem of partners and institutions – including industry, government, national bodies, regulators, health technology assessment bodies, the health service, clinicians, universities, academics, actively involved patients, research charities and others – coming together to drive and support innovation.

The life sciences industry consists of all organisations that research, develop and/or manufacture pharmaceutical, diagnostic and medical technology products for health purposes, of which there are nearly 7,000 in the UK. It is not a homogeneous sector and there are nuances between the different parts and in how they interact with the health and care system. Key industries involved include:

pharmaceuticals – companies involved in the research, development and manufacturing of medicines and vaccines
health technologies/medical technologies – businesses involved in the research, development and production of diagnostics or health technology products.

Medicines, health technologies and diagnostics serve distinct but vital roles in the health and care system and there are differences in how they are developed, regulated and implemented. This means that these different parts of the life sciences sector can interact quite differently with the health care system and with people who need health care. For example, although they are all subject to regulation by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and assessments for clinical and cost-effectiveness by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), these processes look very different if the product being assessed is a medicine or a medical technology.

The full range of different partners working across the life sciences ecosystem are explored in more depth in a later section of this explainer.

What impact do life sciences have?

Life sciences’ health and care impact

The discovery, testing and use of safe and effective medicines, vaccines, technologies and diagnostics are central to our ability to prevent ill health, detect diseases, alleviate symptoms and enhance the quality and length of people’s lives. Without life sciences we would not have many of the tools – including vaccines, medicines and diagnostic equipment – that we routinely rely on in the delivery of health and care today, from blood tests to antibiotics to MRI scanners. The application of life sciences is not limited to treating disease but also includes uses in public health (such as screening technologies), health protection (including immunisations) and social care (for example, digital tools for telemonitoring).

A recent example of the impact of life sciences is the role the sector played in the national response to Covid-19.

Infographic on UK life sciences' Covid-19 response: manufacturing, sequencing variants, developing vaccines, and identifying treatments.

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Innovations and improvements in treatments and diagnostics over time are essential to delivering better clinical outcomes for people who need health care. This is evident in the progress made in the prognosis of some diseases in recent decades, such as the doubling of cancer survival rates in the UK in the past 50 years. Continued developments are driving further improvements, for example in personalised treatments enabled by the increasing availability of genetic information about a person’s cancer.

Innovations can also be part of the solution to major health challenges facing the population and health system. For example, the development of a new class of medications, GLP-1 agonists, which mimic the action of a hormone to improve blood sugar control, is providing additional treatment options for diabetes and creating new options for the clinical management of obesity. In 2023–24, 64.5% of adults aged 18 years and over in England were estimated to be overweight or living with obesity, and there has been an overall upward trend since 2015–16. These new treatments could offer significant benefits if implemented in the right way. However, their introduction also presents challenges around affordability, equity of access, and the potential displacement of non-pharmacological approaches, such as lifestyle and community-based interventions. Implementing these and other similar treatments therefore requires a balanced approach that combines access to innovative treatments with a broader population health approach that focuses on prevention, for example taking action to create healthier food environments, which is essential to tackling the rising tide of diabetes and obesity.

Technological advancements within health care (including in relation to medical equipment, techniques, procedures and novel treatments) can improve health outcomes. But they can also increase costs for health services, for example where they expand the range of potential treatments available for use.

Life sciences research can provide people with opportunities to access potentially cutting-edge treatments and innovations as part of clinical trials. Research can also bring additional income for NHS organisations – for example in 2022/23, industry clinical trials generated £1.2 billion of revenue for the NHS and supported 13,000 NHS jobs. Clinical research also has wider benefits for participating NHS organisations, with research-active NHS organisations demonstrating better patient outcomes, improved workforce wellbeing and staff retention.

While research and innovation across life sciences can bring many benefits, the focus has historically been uneven, with certain health conditions – such as cancer and cardiovascular disease – tending to receive greater attention than others – such as mental health problems or rare diseases. This can result in underinvestment in areas with significant need. Drivers for this include commercial incentives and research ecosystems, which favour health conditions with clear pathways to market and established research infrastructure. There are growing efforts to target funding to traditionally neglected areas to address this.

In addition, there is ongoing focus on improving equity in clinical trials, as it has long been recognised that there is a significant problem with a lack of diversity among participants and underrepresentation of key population groups. These disparities risk skewing research outcomes and limiting the applicability of new treatments across the population. Research from National Voices explored key barriers to participation and potential ways to address them. It also highlighted growing interest in, and commitment to, addressing these barriers among researchers, pharmaceutical companies, patient groups and others. A report from the Association of Medical Research Charities and the ABPI explored steps to enhance inclusivity and representativeness in clinical research, and the Health Research Authority (HRA) and the MHRA have committed to publishing new guidance to help tackle inequalities in research participation.

Diagnostic industry partnership – accurate blood test rules out pre-eclampsia in pregnancy
Pre-eclampsia is a condition that affects 1 in 25 pregnancies in the UK. It can be difficult to diagnose and is potentially life-threatening. Many women admitted to hospital for observation do not go on to develop pre-eclampsia, while in others the condition may be missed. Treating pre-eclampsia costs the NHS £9,000 per pregnancy.
Placental growth factor testing is transforming how clinicians assess for and diagnose pre-eclampsia. This quick blood test helps identify those at high risk of preterm birth due to pre-eclampsia. This means that those not at high risk can avoid unnecessary hospital admissions and maternity services can focus care on those women who need closer monitoring.
Following an initial pilot delivered in Oxford in 2017, placental growth factor testing was rolled out nationally across 15 health innovation networks, with research showing that it has more than halved the time taken to diagnose pre-eclampsia. It has now been implemented in more than 90% of eligible maternity services in England, benefiting around 41,000 pregnancies each year and saving the NHS around £4 million in reduced hospital bed occupancy costs.
The rollout has also been supported by the NHS England Accelerated Access Collaborative’s Innovation Technology Payment and Rapid Uptake Products programmes and the NHS MedTech Funding Mandate.
This case study was provided by the Health Innovation Network.
Pharmaceutical industry partnership – expanding access to biologic therapies for people with severe asthma
Asthma affects more than 5.4 million people in the UK. For around 200,000 people living with uncontrolled or severe asthma, frequent and life-threatening asthma attacks, emergency hospital admissions and long-term steroid side effects can disrupt day-to-day life.
Biologic therapies are used for people with severe asthma. These work by using antibodies made from cells in a laboratory that target specific cells in the body’s immune system to address the underlying causes of airway inflammation. They can reduce severe asthma symptoms, life-threatening asthma attacks and steroid side effects. Yet despite this potential, in 2021 only around 11,000 of the estimated 60,000 eligible patients in England were receiving biologics.
In response, a two-year national programme was supported by all 15 health innovation networks, led by Health Innovation Oxford and Thames Valley as part of the Accelerated Access Collaborative’s Rapid Uptake Products programme. Resources to improve referral pathways, deliver education and raise awareness included learning modules, webinars and the development of the asthma biologics toolkit – a practical online resource that more than 21,000 users accessed. By 2023, more than 4,600 new patients had started biologics and 3,000 fewer people per month were prescribed high-dose oral steroids.
However, there remains more to do to continue this work to enhance the rollout of asthma biologics and ensure that all patients who could benefit from them are able to access them.
This case study was provided by the Health Innovation Network.

Life sciences’ economic impact

As well as having an impact on patients and the NHS directly, research by the Institute for Public Policy Research has highlighted the wider social and economic impacts the life sciences sector can have, through stimulating economic growth and providing employment opportunities. It can also attract inward investment. For example, the sector is the largest private investor in research and development in the UK, investing around £8.7 billion annually, and it also attracts substantial foreign direct investment – exceeding £1.3 billion in 2022. The UK also exports significant amounts of pharmaceutical and medical technology products, with the value of UK exports reaching £25.6 billion for pharmaceutical products and £10.1 billion for medical technology products in 2023.

In the 2021/22 financial year, the sector accounted for 6,850 UK businesses, employed more than 300,000 people and generated an annual turnover in excess of £108.1 billion. UK governments have consistently identified life sciences as one of the most important sectors in the UK economy, and a priority area for driving economic growth and prosperity. The 2010–15 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government described the sector as the ‘jewel in the crown of the economy’. Various policy documents, including the Life Sciences Vision, Lord O’Shaughnessy’s review into commercial clinical trials in the UK, and more recently, the 10-year Modern Industrial Strategy and the Life Sciences Sector Plan, have set out ambitions to support the sector to grow, attract investment and create highly skilled jobs.

Some of these plans have also focused on reducing regional economic inequalities through life sciences sector investment in different parts of the UK. For example, the 2022 Levelling Up White Paper set a target to increase public investment in research and development outside the South East of England by at least 40% by 2030. This has seen a drive to move beyond the traditional ‘Golden Triangle’ of life sciences centres, which encompasses London, Oxford and Cambridge, to grow capability across a much bigger footprint across England. For instance, there is a significant life sciences cluster in and around Liverpool, which in 2023 was designated nationally as a dedicated life sciences investment zone. In the June 2025 spending review, the government also launched a £410 million Local Innovation Partnerships Fund to give local leaders a central role in co-creating research and development programmes to support local economies.

The intersection between the impacts on health and care and the economy

The current government has stressed the interrelated nature of two of its key missions: its health mission and its economic mission. This has often been expressed within the context of rising health-related inactivity and the fiscal burden of increasing ill health. The life sciences sector has been called on to play a role in tackling this by ‘transforming the NHS into an engine for economic growth’. A report by Frontier Economics has argued that there is £246 billion in productivity growth to be gained from reducing ill health – equal to about 9.6% of gross domestic product. The government has highlighted the role of innovation in tackling this. As part of a wider £279 million partnership with a pharmaceutical company, it announced a five-year clinical trial to look at the ‘real-world’ effectiveness of the company’s weight loss medication in terms of preventing diabetes and obesity-related complications in Greater Manchester, including understanding whether the medication can boost productivity and bring more people back into the workplace.

Healthtech industry partnership – using artificial intelligence imaging to improve outcomes following stroke
Every year, around 27,000 people in the UK experience a stroke caused by large vessel occlusion. These strokes require urgent treatment, such as mechanical thrombectomy or intravenous thrombolysis, which must be administered within hours to prevent long-term disability. However, many patients arrive at non-specialist hospitals and must be rapidly assessed and transferred to a specialist centre for treatment.
An artificial intelligence imaging tool – Brainomix 360 Stroke – is helping clinicians to rapidly assess brain scans to identify stroke type and severity. The tool processes more than 97% of scans in an average time of four minutes, providing real-time interpretation to support clinical decision-making. It is now used in all 107 stroke units across England.
Since its implementation, time to treatment has reduced by 50 minutes and patients requiring transfer to specialist neuroscience centres are twice as likely to receive mechanical thrombectomy, with an estimated 1,000 people avoiding long-term disability every year. The technology also delivers a financial return, estimated at 1.25 to 1.4 times its implementation cost, with health benefits of 1.17 to 1.35 times the investment.
Brainomix has worked with Health Innovation Oxford and Thames Valley for nearly a decade, receiving local and national adoption support. From this collaboration, it has been reported that the company has safeguarded 29 jobs, created 40 jobs and leveraged investment of £32.7 million.
This case study was provided by the Health Innovation Network.
Research partnership – world-first treatment for sickle cell disease approved for NHS use
Affecting around 15,000 people in England, sickle cell disease is a genetic condition caused by errors in the genes for haemoglobin, essential for carrying oxygen around the body. It can cause severe pain, organ damage and a shortened lifespan. Currently, the only long-term cure is a bone marrow transplant, which carries risks and is only available to a small number of people.
In January 2025, NICE approved a world-first gene-editing treatment for NHS use, offering a new option for people living with the often debilitating symptoms of sickle cell disease. Researchers at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust have led clinical trials of the treatment in the UK, as part of an international collaboration between academic researchers, industry partners and people with sickle cell disease.
The gene therapy treatment works by precisely editing the genes in the person’s bone marrow stem cells to enable the production of functioning haemoglobin. The treatment can stop painful and unpredictable sickle cell crises – the most common symptom of sickle cell disease, accounting for 14,000 hospital admissions each year.
The treatment will be made available for NHS patients with a severe form of sickle cell disease, initially being offered at specialist NHS centres in London, Manchester and Birmingham for an estimated 50 eligible patients each year, while further evidence is collected regarding its potential for wider use in the NHS.
Alongside improving quality of life for people with sickle cell disease, the treatment may help ease pressure on NHS services and also address longstanding health inequalities, as sickle cell disease disproportionately affects people of African and Caribbean heritage.
This case study was provided by the Health Innovation Network.

Who is involved in life sciences?

The life sciences sector relies on a complex ecosystem, involving partnerships between a wide range of groups and organisations. Having a thriving life sciences environment in England depends on many connections and interdependencies between these different parts of the ecosystem. The graphic and list below are not exhaustive. Rather, they aim to provide a broad overview of the players most commonly involved and their roles.

Spider diagram showing an overview of the players most commonly involved in life sciences: regulatory bodies, health care system, government departments, industry, and other bodies.

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- The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is responsible for setting, overseeing and implementing policy related to health and social care in the UK. In this context, it plays a central role in setting the framework for life sciences by ensuring that research and development is aligned to national priorities but also that innovations are adopted in the NHS effectively. In doing this, it works closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Some aspects of the role of the DHSC are likely to change when NHS England is abolished and its functions are merged with the Department’s (see below).
- The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is responsible for oversight of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which includes the research funding councils such as the Medical Research Council.
- The Office for Life Sciences (OLS) is responsible for setting the strategic direction for research, innovation and the use of technology to transform health and care. It reports to the DHSC, the DSIT, and the Department for Business and Trade. It works across these government departments and with other agencies and organisations, including the MHRA and NHS England. It is also responsible for engaging with industry. It convenes the Life Sciences Council, which brings together government and industry to provide strategic oversight of the future of UK life sciences and will play a key role in the delivery of the Life Sciences Sector Plan.
- National research bodies. Government funding for health research is allocated by the DHSC to the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and by DSIT to UKRI and the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA). These bodies allocate funding and are also central to building capacity and leadership for research. The HRA oversees the ethical and legal approval of health and social care research to protect and promote the interests of patients and the public.
- Bodies responsible for regulation, assessment and oversight. The MHRA is responsible for regulating all medicines and medical devices in the UK to ensure they are safe and effective before entering the market. It also conducts post-market surveillance to monitor safety and performance over time. NICE publishes guidance for the NHS on the use of new and existing treatments and carries out health technology assessments, which determine clinical and cost-effectiveness and whether a product provides good value for money for the NHS. The Care Quality Commission also plays a role in ensuring that new treatments are implemented safely and in line with regulatory standards, as part of its inspection of health care services.
- NHS England plays a strategic and operational role in supporting the development and adoption of life science innovations across the NHS. This includes working with partner organisations to align innovation with NHS priorities, streamlining procurement and commissioning pathways, and ensuring equitable access, including through leading various initiatives to support access to and the adoption of new technologies. NHS England also plays an important role in negotiating pricing and funding for medicines, and collects, processes and publishes data and information from across the health and social care system in England and supports approved researchers and institutions to use this data. These roles may soon change as NHS England is set to be abolished and its functions will be merged into the DHSC by mid-2027.
- Local NHS organisations. The NHS is involved operationally at all stages of life sciences, from the early development and testing of innovations to supporting adoption at scale. The NHS dedicates resources, including from its workforce, for example by playing a key role in enrolling patients in clinical trials. The extent to which NHS provider organisations are involved with life sciences can vary significantly. For example, life sciences activity is often more concentrated in specialist centres because of their case mix and size, as well as organisational expertise, history and geography (including proximity to academic/research centres). However, research activity is not limited to large hospitals and academic centres, with partnerships between the NHS and the life sciences sector increasingly taking place in primary care, secondary care and at system level. Some general practices have a strong track record of delivering or supporting commercial clinical trials and efforts are under way to expand research in primary care.
- Clinicians. Health care professionals are key in leading research and development, such as clinical trials. Clinicians also have a key role in implementing and adopting life science innovations in the real world within clinical practice.
- Patients and the public. Aside from taking part in research as participants, involving the public in designing, conducting and disseminating research leads to more relevant research and an improved experience for participants. Most research funders ask for evidence of patient and public involvement, and the MHRA and HRA require patient involvement in clinical trial design, management, conduct and dissemination. There has been a concerted effort to make it easier for people to take part in research and increase the diversity of participants, particularly in clinical trials, as a means of tackling the health inequalities that arise from the exclusion of some communities.
- Universities and academics are key to leading research and development in life sciences, with academics often working across both universities and clinical settings. The research covers everything from molecules in laboratories, to population health data, to the implementation of life science innovations. There are also eight academic health science centres, which work to bring together expertise from universities and NHS organisations.
- Health innovation networks are regional bodies, commissioned by the OLS and NHS England, that exist to bring together the NHS, industry, academia, third sector organisations and other local organisations to support the adoption and dissemination of innovative technologies and bring the benefits of them to local people faster. There are 15 health innovation networks across England.
- Research charities. Research charities, including many of the major disease-specific organisations, provide research funding and expert capabilities, as well as promoting and supporting patient and public involvement in research. For example, the Association of Medical Research Charities represents more than 150 medical and health charities, which invested £1.6 billion in research in 2024.
- Data-related bodies. A number of key data-related bodies provide access, infrastructure and governance for health research data. These include Health Data Research UK, Clinical Practice Research Datalink, UK Biobank and NIHR BioResource.
- Industry includes companies involved in developing and/or producing pharmaceutical, healthtech or diagnostic products, and companies that supply goods and services to them. These differ significantly in size and nature, from small research and development-focused biotech companies and digital technology start-ups to large multinational pharmaceutical, diagnostic and healthtech companies. They often work in partnership with the NHS to support life sciences by investing in research and clinical trials. Industry associations also work to represent the companies and businesses involved in the life sciences sector, for example the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, Medicines UK (formerly the British Generic Manufacturers Association), British In Vitro Diagnostics Association, Association of British HealthTech Industries and BioIndustry Association.

The breadth of different partners involved in life sciences helps to drive innovation in the UK, with partners often working in a complementary way across the life sciences ecosystem, for example by funding different types of research.

Beyond this, effective partnership working between the NHS and the life sciences sector is key to realising the benefits of innovation for patient care. A report by The King’s Fund, focused on formal partnerships between pharmaceutical companies and the NHS, found that this type of collaborative working needs to navigate a number of barriers, including different organisational cultures and contexts across the public and private sectors. The research highlighted that effective collaborative working requires significant time and effort from all partners, and rigorous safeguards to mitigate risks and guard against conflicts of interest, with a high level of transparency on all sides. The variation between different industries in the life sciences sector means that collaboration needs to be approached differently depending on the relevant characteristics and regulatory underpinnings of each.

The government has highlighted the potential of closer working between the NHS and all parts of the life sciences industry as part of delivering improvements in health, placing this at the heart of its recent strategies and plans.

What are the government's plans for the life sciences sector?

Given the potential for life sciences to have a positive health and economic impact, supporting the sector has been a priority for successive UK governments. There has been a series of national plans, strategies and reviews that have attempted to both outline a vision for the future of life sciences and take steps to address barriers and deliver on government ambitions.

Previous strategies include the UK Life Sciences Vision, published in July 2021 by the then Conservative government, which aimed to position the UK as a global leader in life sciences, following the boost in recognition of the sector after the Covid-19 pandemic. This was followed in 2023 by the Lord O’Shaughnessy review, which was commissioned to identify how to resolve key challenges in conducting commercial clinical trials in the UK following a fall in commercial clinical trials activity and increasing competition from other countries. It made 27 recommendations to improve the commercial clinical trials environment, which have since been adopted. Also in 2023, the government set out the first Medical Technology Strategy, building on the success of the medical technology funding mandate, which sought to support NHS commissioners in adopting cost-effective healthtech innovations, and provided specific funding streams for artificial intelligence-related projects and solutions. In 2024, NHS England published the report of the Innovation Ecosystem Programme, which highlighted the important role that life science innovation plays in supporting the NHS but also explored the key role that the NHS has to play in enabling this. Also in 2024, Lord Darzi’s independent investigation of the NHS in England highlighted the potential of life sciences to improve patient outcomes and drive economic growth. It also emphasised the need for the NHS to become a more effective partner in research and innovation.

In addition, there have been several recent plans, strategies and reviews focused specifically on data – an area that is particularly important to life sciences and research. Key documents include the Data Saves Lives Strategy and the Goldacre review, published in 2022, both of which set out a vision to unlock the power of NHS data to improve health by bringing together health datasets within new regional ‘secure data environments’. Further, the 2024 Sudlow review mapped health-relevant data across the UK and provided recommendations to address access, fragmentation, linkage and quality issues, which are hindering research.

The new strategic direction – the Modern Industrial Strategy, the 10 Year Health Plan and the Life Sciences Sector Plan

The current government has placed particular emphasis on its commitment to life sciences. Before the 2024 general election, Labour created its own plan for the sector, which was launched at the Labour business conference in February 2024, promising to go further in government to create the conditions for success for the sector. Labour’s manifesto built on this, describing an ambition to develop an NHS innovation and adoption strategy for easier NHS rollout of new treatments and technology alongside faster regulatory approval, and an aim to improve clinical trial recruitment, for example via the NHS App.

The government was seen to have demonstrated this commitment at the Autumn Budget in 2024, through a £20.4 billion investment in UK research and development, with life sciences taking a substantial share, including a £520 million investment in the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund until 2030.This was followed by life sciences forming a core part of the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, which included some headline ambitions for life sciences, including that by 2030 the UK will be the leading life sciences economy in Europe, and by 2035 the third most important life sciences economy globally, after the United States and China.

Following this, life sciences was described as ‘central’ to the 10 Year Health Plan, published in July 2025, which described significant ambitions to transform the NHS by aligning it with the evolving needs of people who need health care, leveraging technology and life sciences innovations. Key proposals for life sciences included the following.

The government has chosen five ‘big bets’ on ‘the most direct and impactful technological levers for transforming NHS care delivery’:
- data quality and interoperability for research and innovation
- artificial intelligence tools
- genomics and predictive analytics
- wearables
- robotics.
A focus on data quality and interoperability is supported by the creation of a new Health Data Research Service, backed by up to £600 million from the government and the Wellcome Trust, to create a secure single access point for existing health datasets.
On clinical trials, there are ambitions to speed up recruitment so that by March 2026 clinical trial set-up time falls to 150 days, and also to expand the role of primary care in research through the NIHR School for Primary Care Research and the primary care commercial research delivery centres. These centres will specialise in commercial clinical trials based in primary care.
Vaccines are recognised as playing both a core role in prevention and as a source of future innovation, with the plan recognising the value of mRNA vaccines (the technology used in some of the Covid-19 vaccines) and the potential of personalised cancer vaccines, which will be trialled over the next five years.
There are changes for the bodies responsible for regulation, assessment and oversight, with the MHRA and NICE launching a new joint process by April 2026 to boost the speed of decisions on medicines and cut administrative burdens for the system and industry. NICE’s technology appraisal process will expand to include mandated funding by the NHS to cover some devices, diagnostics and digital products. The institute will also identify when existing medicines should be retired as they are assessed as offering poor value for money.
As part of supporting the equitable adoption of innovation, there will be a single national formulary for medicines by 2028, expanded to healthtech by 2030. There will also be a new NHS ‘innovator passport’, enabling innovative healthtech products to be assessed by one NHS organisation that then obviates further assessments.
In terms of infrastructure for innovation, the government is looking to create ‘regional health innovation zones’ to give areas new freedoms to experiment, test and generate evidence on implementing innovation. The aim is to support innovation with multi-year contracts, which give more certainty and allow for longer-term strategic thinking.
The plan also sets out a range of ambitions around mainstreaming genomics into routine NHS care, including in prevention (see dropdown below).

Genomics is an interdisciplinary field across science and technology that focuses on the study of the human genome and its application to human health. Genomic medicine and technologies support both medical technology and pharmaceuticals – for example, enabling quicker and more effective diagnostics and better precision treatment by matching people to the most effective medications. The UK has been at the forefront of international progress on whole genome sequencing and genomic medicine, including through the 100,000 Genomes Project, and the NHS has become the first national health system to offer whole genome sequencing as part of routine care for people with certain conditions via the NHS Genomic Medicine Service.
Ongoing developments include The Generation Study, which is offering whole genome sequencing to 100,000 newborns to explore whether this is a useful screening tool in newborn babies. There is also the Our Future Health programme, designed to be the UK’s largest ever health research programme, which is aiming to recruit up to five million participants with linked primary and secondary care health data, genomic data and samples – to be used for longitudinal health research and to provide insights that lead to more effective ways of preventing and tackling common diseases.
The 10 Year Health Plan has signalled a shift in how genomics will be used, from focusing predominantly on the very specialist end of treating cancers and rare diseases to ambitions for it to be used ‘in routine preventive care’ and to ‘mainstream genomics population health’. Moving to this new approach will require careful implementation and the management of risks, including around data privacy, ethical issues such as consent, potential impacts on health inequalities and the possibility of over-treatment.
These and other issues will be explored through ongoing large-scale studies (including Our Future Health and The Generation Study) and the work of Genomics England (established by the DHSC in 2013 as a government-owned company to lead large-scale genomic research through data collection and analysis and to integrate genomic medicine into routine NHS care) and the NHS Genomic Medicine Service.

The subsequent Life Sciences Sector Plan repeated many of the commitments made in the 10 Year Health Plan, making it clear that the strong alignment between the NHS, technology and the life sciences sector was purposeful, to ensure that industrial policy was not ‘detached’ from health policy and that the changes to the NHS operating model would support life sciences. The plan focused on three interconnected ambitions: to enable world-class research and development; to make the UK an outstanding place to start, grow, scale and invest; and to drive health innovation and NHS reform, with six headline actions underpinning these.

In a departure from previous strategies, the plan included an annex of metrics to drive accountability for delivery, alongside a commitment to an annual Sector Plan Implementation Update to track progress, supported by a ‘refreshed’ Life Sciences Council, co-chaired by government and industry. This joint working is echoed throughout the plan, with emphasis placed on ‘coordination and collaboration’ across the life sciences ecosystem as key to realising the plan’s ambitions.

This latest plan, alongside the long line of previous documents, underlines the high hopes for the life sciences sector and the focus that successive governments have placed on it. A key driver of this has been an ambition to position the UK as a desirable destination for life sciences in a globally competitive sector so that it can benefit patients and the economy. This is in the face of concerns that, on a number of key indicators, the UK’s competitiveness for life sciences has been declining.

What next for life sciences in England's health and care system? Key foundations for the future

The recent plans and strategies recognise that advancements in technology and science are creating new possibilities for preventing, detecting and treating ill health. Developments such as wearable sensors, genomic insights and predictive analytics could drive significant benefits for people’s health and fundamentally reshape the care model of the NHS. They also lay out how the life sciences sector can contribute significantly to the proposed direction of travel for the NHS, harnessing innovation to support a move towards a more preventive, personalised, digital health and care system.

However, these messages have been a common thread across the numerous strategies and plans that successive governments have pursued, as mentioned earlier. This raises a key question about what will be different this time to enable the realisation of longstanding ambitions to ‘make the UK a life sciences and medical technology powerhouse’ and have the NHS work ‘hand in hand’ with life sciences. In the final section of this explainer, we reflect on some of the key issues that will need to be addressed to achieve these ambitions and some of the tensions and trade-offs that will need to be managed along the way.

Regulation, approvals and access

Robust and efficient regulatory and approval processes are foundational to guaranteeing patient safety while ensuring people can access innovations in a timely and equitable way. This means that bodies such as the MHRA and NICE need to strike a careful balance between delivering fast assessments and ensuring the safety and clinical effectiveness of products. In the context of a finite budget for the NHS, NICE’s assessments must also balance access with cost-effectiveness considerations to help the NHS get value for money and to provide the greatest overall benefit to the whole population. At times, these objectives may come into tension with the wider government priority to make the UK an attractive destination for life science innovation and investment.

A further challenge is that regulatory frameworks have tended to be designed around assessing single technologies. However, scientific developments and innovations mean a growing number of treatment approaches span different technologies and pathways. Bodies such as the MHRA and NICE face the challenge of constantly adapting and ‘future proofing’ their approaches to respond to changing technologies, with both making recent changes to their frameworks to reflect this.

Uncertainty, complexity and fragmentation in regulatory pathways can sometimes create a challenging journey from product development to frontline adoption and access. In the case of some UK healthtech companies, concerns around this have prompted them to choose to first launch their products in other markets that are seen to have clearer regulatory frameworks to work to. The healthtech sector has welcomed the introduction of the Regulatory Innovation Office in October 2024 as recognition of the need to address this.

Various commitments in the 10 Year Health Plan and Life Sciences Sector Plan aim to make regulatory pathways more ‘streamlined and proportionate’ and provide increased certainty, while continuing to ensure safety, clinical effectiveness and value for money.

Adoption, scale and spread

Ensuring that safe, clinically effective and cost-effective medicines, medical technologies and diagnostics reach the market in England is a crucial step, but equally important is their widespread adoption across the NHS. The NHS is the largest market for innovation in England and local NHS organisations (often supported by organisations such as health innovation networks) play a key role in then delivering these medicines and technologies. However, as a review of the Innovation Ecosystem Programme has noted, while England has historically been strong at early-stage innovation and research, achieving ‘rapid adoption and diffusion’ of innovative new medicines, medical technologies and diagnostics in the NHS has been a longstanding issue. This can create unwarranted variation in uptake across the NHS, leading to variable access for patients, which can further entrench health inequalities. It can also lead to a perception among some life sciences companies that the NHS in England is a challenging market for their products, leading them to prioritise other markets, with the potential for this to delay access for patients in the UK.

Barriers to widespread adoption include a lack of workforce readiness, infrastructure gaps, fragmented procurement processes, limited local capacity, and a lack of incentives that support uptake and spread. The review of the Innovation Ecosystem Programme found that to overcome these barriers, as much effort, funding and focus on the spread and scale of proven products is required as is given to early development. For healthtech specifically, initiatives included in the 10 Year Health Plan and Life Sciences Sector Plan – such as the new ‘innovator passport’, regional health innovation zones, and the integrated rules-based pathway for evaluating, funding and commissioning innovative medical technologies in the NHS – may be well placed to address some of these challenges.

Health data

The effective use of data and analysis is foundational to life sciences, from their use in conducting scientific research to supporting the development and implementation of innovation, and then to the monitoring of product and service performance for patient safety. The NHS offers a unique proposition for life sciences, given its potential as a rich source of comprehensive, longitudinal health data, which spans patients’ lives and the different services that they interact with, from hospitals to general practitioners. Furthermore, in addition to NHS patient data, the UK is home to world-leading research cohorts such as UK Biobank.

However, as the Darzi review of the NHS in England noted, the ‘enormous potential’ of NHS data is largely untapped, with significant challenges around data quality, accessibility and complex governance hindering the effective use of health data. The Sudlow review also noted this and highlighted the potential for even greater insights, not just for life sciences but also for the health system more generally, which would come from linking different data sources together. Investment in core data infrastructure and coherent, joined-up information governance is essential to harnessing the benefits of data for both research and frontline care. To enable better use of data, there will also need to be a focus on getting the foundations right, building capabilities and reducing variation across different parts of the system.

To tackle these challenges, the government has announced a number of initiatives, including investment in secure data environments and the establishment of the Health Data Research UK service. It has also introduced new legislation, namely the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, to further support ambitions of greater interoperability between NHS information technology systems. The Life Sciences Sector Plan has also committed to using a combination of policy and legislative change to speed up access to health data for research and other secondary purposes, building on this more permissive legal framework. Alongside these actions, the wide use of health data for research and to support life sciences will be dependent on public and staff trust that data sharing and use are responsible and secure.

Investment and funding

New diagnostics and treatments come at a cost to the health service, and this is often significant for novel or innovative treatments (as set out in our explainer on access to new medicines in the NHS in England). The NHS’s spending on medicines, appliances and medical devices reached £20.6 billion in 2023/24 – around 12% of the DHSC’s day-to-day spending (not accounting for rebates). This is the second highest area of NHS spend after staffing costs.

In this context, it is crucial that the NHS has the right funding, financial incentives and mechanisms to introduce new innovations that benefit patient care and is able to adopt them at scale. Although government strategies have sought to guarantee support for industry, funding has often remained unevenly distributed and short term. For example, particular challenges have been identified when it comes to accessing capital, which smaller life sciences companies looking to scale often need. There is a need for sustained investment that can support all the stages of a new innovation’s journey, from translational research to later-stage development and commercialisation.

In some cases, the incentives, objectives and priorities relating to health, life sciences and wider government policy do not pull in the same direction, resulting in a challenging landscape to negotiate. For example, although there is a clear desire from the government to make the UK an attractive hub for life sciences and to drive economic growth, there is also a competing desire to keep the cost of new medicines and health technologies affordable for the NHS in the context of a limited budget. Finite resources mean there are trade-offs to be made, as spending more on new medicines and health technologies may have opportunity costs in reducing the resources available for other treatments or services.

To make the most of opportunities for innovation to support population health and the NHS’s long-term financial sustainability, there need to be incentives and mechanisms able to support innovation where savings are likely to be delivered in the longer term, for example in relation to preventive interventions.

Workforce

The life sciences sector depends on a diverse, highly skilled workforce, which spans a wide range of roles, from biological scientists to software development professionals, and from clinical academics to directors in manufacturing. Building this workforce requires strategic collaboration between industry, government and educational institutions, to ensure there is the investment in skills development and the varied education and training pathways needed to build a future-focused life sciences workforce.

The NHS workforce also has an essential role to play when it comes to life sciences. However, as the Darzi review of the NHS in England highlighted, current pressures on the health system are affecting the ability of the NHS workforce – from clinicians on the frontline to system leaders – to prioritise life science activities, such as the set-up of and recruitment to clinical trials, or to have protected clinical research time. Clinical leaders play an important role in ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments, often acting as champions of innovation. Ensuring these leaders and other NHS staff are empowered and upskilled will be key to making the most of the opportunities that innovations on the horizon offer. This will require leadership from the centre that focuses on a ‘how to’ approach, complemented by increased peer support that enables knowledge sharing and supports reduced variation in access to innovations.

Final reflections

This explainer has outlined the varied and complex landscape across life sciences in the UK, including the wide range of partners involved spanning different industries and sectors. It has also highlighted the many different ways in which life science innovations have the potential to enhance the country’s health and economic prosperity.

However, at a time when the NHS is under immense pressures, life sciences alone will not be able to alleviate the issues facing the health system. Ambitions for innovation must therefore be coupled with a focus on getting the basics of health right, supporting people to live healthy lives and ensuring they can access care when they need it.

For patients and the public, life science innovations offer the opportunity for earlier diagnosis, more personalised care and improved outcomes. Realising these benefits will depend not only on addressing the infrastructure and system challenges outlined in this explainer, but also on managing risks and ensuring that implementation is inclusive and equitable. This will require strategic collaboration across the different partners involved in the life sciences ecosystem. Only by building shared understanding and aligning priorities can we tackle today’s health challenges and shape the innovations that will define the future of care.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and the British In Vitro Diagnostic Association for supporting this project, in particular Brian Duggan, Nabil Rastani and Helen Dent for their engagement with the work. We would also like to thank colleagues at the Association of Medical Research Charities and the Association of British HealthTech Industries for their time and insight to support the scoping of this explainer. Further thanks go to Dr Kristin-Anne Rutter for providing comments on an earlier draft.

We would like to thank the Health Innovation Network, particularly Michael Ridgwell, Claire-Frances Fuller and Claire Portsmouth, for their support in sourcing and providing the case studies and for contributing their insights.

Our thanks also go to colleagues at The King’s Fund who contributed to this work. In particular, Anoushka Murray, Siva Anandaciva, Pritesh Mistry, Andrew McCracken, Mon Raksit, Gemma Umali, Frank Rigby, Helen Joubert and Kate Pearce.

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Life sciences explained

Authors

Charlotte Wickens

Anna Charles

Charlotte Wickens