An exciting new collaboration has been launched, aimed at accelerating clinical trials in the field of stem cell transplantation and blood cancer. This will bring innovative new treatments to patients faster, while strengthening the UK's position as a global leader in life sciences.
Natalie Hill, whose husband Geoff died from leukaemia, also spoke at the launch event. She said: “The thought of others getting on a clinical trial that could save their lives fills me with so much joy.”
Speaking at the launch of Accelerating Clinical Trials (ACT) on 1 October, Lord James O’Shaughnessy, who led the 2023 government-commissioned review of commercial clinical trials in the UK, said: “There can’t be a more fundamental mission than saving patients’ lives faster.”
ACT builds on the success of the Trials Acceleration Programme (TAP) Network and the IMPACT network, the UK’s first ever clinical trials partnership, in which Anthony Nolan has played a key role. Both networks have already recruited over 3,000 patients to pivotal studies.
ACT has been launched with £5m funding from Cure Leukaemia, Anthony Nolan and NHS Blood & Transplant. It provides a central trial delivery hub, supports registration-standard studies, and has already attracted a growing portfolio of drug, cellular and transplant therapies. ACT also created the UK’s first Acute Myeloid Leukaemia registry, MyeCare, launched in July 2025.
Professor Charlie Cradock CBE, former Anthony Nolan Medical Director who founded ACT, and came to the event direct from his haemato-oncology clinic in Birmingham added: “Advances in science are now translating into genuinely transformational treatments. One in four of the patients we treated today would not have survived ten years ago. I see before my eyes how this revolution in clinical trials is changing patients’ prospects.”
Through its partnership with DIDACT, which aims to optimise the delivery of UK blood cancer trials, ACT ensures trials are prioritised by expert clinical leaders while reinvesting any surplus back into the UK blood cancer community – building a sustainable and scalable model for the future.
Increasingly the international biopharmaceutical sector is identifying ACT as an important ‘one stop shop’ for registration standard trials which are delivered through globally significant trials networks which can also access expert clinical, translational and regulatory expertise.
ACT’s ambitions:
- Deliver faster access to innovative treatments and pioneering trials for patients
- Establish a scalable, replicable model of trial delivery for multiple medical fields
- Create a sustainable framework combining philanthropy, collaboration, and commercial insights for a future-ready clinical trial framework
- Generate high-quality data to support healthcare decision-making and research
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