The Spring Budget signalled further commitment from the Government to delivering their Life Sciences vision, with increased funding for the MHRA and AI initiatives.

The extra money will help the MHRA to implement the swathe of planned reforms announced in the past year, including on the regulation of medical devices, software as a medical device and AI. You can read more about those changes in our post here.

While the appetite to make the UK a more attractive destination for bringing innovative medicines and medical devices to market is clear, only when we see the detail of the changes in the regulatory regime will we know if the MHRA can deliver on the Chancellor’s ambitious promises set out below:

• “From 2024, they will move to a different model which will allow rapid, often near automatic sign-off for medicines and technologies already approved by trusted regulators in other parts of the world such as the United States, Europe or Japan.”
• “At the same time from next year they will set up a swift new approval process for the most cutting-edge medicines and devices to ensure the UK becomes a global centre for their development.”
• “And with an extra £10m of funding over the next two years they will put in place the quickest, simplest, regulatory approval in the world for companies seeking rapid market access.”

Please contact our Health Tech team if you have any questions about medicines, medical devices or the planned regulatory reforms.