Another setback for cancer research in the UK

The UK’s National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) announced unexpectedly in June 2023 that it will be permanently “winding down” activities because of ongoing uncertainties in the wider economic and research environment.12 The failure of the UK’s public research funders to ensure the sustainability and continuity of the NCRI has drawn widespread condemnation from patients, doctors, and other key stakeholders.34 This is the latest in a series of serious setbacks to UK cancer research and is likely to have a large ripple effect, beyond oncology, affecting other key areas of clinical research. This setback also comes at a time when the UK is trying to reinvigorate clinical research in the wake of a substantial decline (48% fall in phase 3 commercial clinical trials in the past five years) following Brexit and the covid-19 pandemic.5

Funded by a consortium of partners, including many charities and UK government organisations, the NCRI was set up in 2001 to bring together “key players in research in this country to identify where research is …