Boosting the development and capacity of clinical trials in East London

Clinical trials are hailed as the 'gold standard' for determining what healthcare interventions work best for different medical problems and different people. Trials can involve testing new drugs, medical devices and other ways of improving healthcare treatments, such as lifestyle changes, as well as comparing different treatment options.

Getting the best possible outcomes from trials relies on an expert team in their design and analysis, ideally comprising statisticians, trial and data managers and experts, as well as IT experts.

Barts Health and the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at Queen Mary have an excellent track record in trialling treatments and lifestyle interventions for a range of medical conditions through its existing clinical trials units (Barts CTU and Pragmatic CTU), and this investment aims to build on these strengths.

A recent example of a highly successful, well-staffed CTU in Oxford was the RECOVERY trial which rapidly produced the first reliable evidence in the world of a medicine to reduce deaths from COVID-19.