The BRC has received positive feedback from the NIHR following the submission of its second annual progress report summarising key achievements, research productivity and examples of benefit to patients.
Our BRC has the largest portfolio of experimental medicine, particularly in interventional studies. We have also initiated the largest number of studies. As a result, our BRC had the highest number of active clinical research studies (over 700) in 2013/14, almost 200 more than the next most active BRC for clinical research studies and one of the largest portfolios of phase l and ll clinical trials.
The NIHR Central Commissioning Facility (NIHR CCF), which provided each BRC with commentary on the collective performance of all eleven BRCs to capture activity across the entire NIHR BRC scheme, noted that the UCLH/UCL BRC successfully conducted the High Impact Initiative call resulting in the establishment of seven new initiatives in experimental medicine.
The feedback also acknowledged that the BRC continues to strengthen links with other NIHR infrastructure, most notably with the CRF. Links with other parts of the infrastructure such as with BRCs and CRFs at GOSH and Moorfields to speed up the process of patient and family consent into the rare diseases pilot for Genomics England were also commended; along with collaboration and joint working with five other BRCs on the NIHR Health Informatics Collaborative initiative.
The opening of the new Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre was welcomed and the NIHR CCF stated this should have a “significant effect on the progress of the neurosciences programme”. In addition, the BRC received feedback expressing how pleased the NIHR CCF were that the adult cardiovascular phenotyping unit, which will host adult phase I and II cardiovascular physiology studies, officially opened in April 2014.
The BRC’s engagement with industry across a variety of sectors (e.g. Eisai, GSK, Healthstats) was noted and as well as its strong portfolio of commercial contract studies and growing portfolio of industry collaborative studies. The feedback showed our BRC has helped leverage one of the largest amounts of external funding and we compare very favourably with other BRCs in terms of patentability.
The BRC was also congratulated on the scope, variety and scale of its involvement, engagement and participation activities throughout 2013/14 which included a programme of workshops, a PPI bursary scheme and one-to-one advice and guidance. We are one of the leading BRCs for publications and one of the largest BRCs regarding the number of supported research students.
