Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of progress toward the target set in the Life Sciences Sector Plan, published on 16 July 2025, to reduce clinical trial set-up time to 150 days by March 2026.

The Government is committed to cutting the current time it takes to get a clinical trial set up, to under 150 days by March 2026, with the aim of making the United Kingdom a world leader in clinical trials.

Data published on 15 April 2026 on GOV.UK as part of the UK Clinical Research Delivery Programme’s key performance indicators report show that average set-up times for commercial interventional clinical trials have reduced from 169 days to 122 days, when comparing the same period this year to last. This is significant progress toward the Government’s target to cut clinical trials set-up times to within 150 days.

The target set in the Life Sciences Sector Plan is that by March 2026, 95% of commercial interventional trials in England deliver set up within 150 days. Data published on 15 April 2026 on GOV.UK as part of the UK Clinical Research Delivery key performance indicators report shows that 78% of commercial interventional studies starting set-up in September 2025 met the 150-day target.

Performance data against the target will be published monthly with the final view of all studies that commenced set-up by March 2026 published in October 2026.