United Kingdom research governance strategy

Editor—The National Cancer Research Institute does not set the research strategies of its partners, as Kerrison et al say.¹ They also do not grasp its mission, which is to double the number of patients entering cancer clinical trials by 2005 (a target it has already surpassed).

They suggest that the formal research networks in cancer were set up as a result of the outcomes of the Pharmaceutical Industry Competitiveness Taskforce. The institute was created as a result of the high political profile after the publication of the EURO-CARE II data and the subsequent partnership with major governmental and nongovernmental cancer research funders. The taskforce's conclusions post-date establishment of the institute.

The suggestion that “the private sector will have an important role in identifying and implementing research priorities in other disease groups” seems misleading. The private sector, while bringing substantial and welcome funding to cancer research, does not set the overall NHS research priority. Industry by its very nature is partisan and concerned only with commercially viable areas. Government, charities, and the NHS have wider concerns for all cancer research.

The statement that these partnerships will provide “much needed strategic direction” and the apparent concern that industry will somehow lead the United Kingdom down the US path also needs careful scrutiny.

The jury remains out on whether changes to cancer networks will improve strategic direction. Indeed, current organisational changes may lead to the opposite. With fiscal control in primary care trusts and with the need for strategic health authorities to hit substantial service targets, research and development could become a low priority. Furthermore, the new cancer research networks are accountable for their spending, and public funding is not being siphoned off into commercial research. Industry does, however, have legitimate concerns about the cost of conducting clinical trials in the United Kingdom that need to be addressed.

Kerrison et al state that, “Research governance means a change of emphasis from professional codes of conduct to legal rules.” This implies that either new laws will be enacted to make performance of the research governance framework a legal duty or the framework will form a contract between, say, a charity and a university—neither of which is correct.