Skip to main content

Written question asked by Scott Arthur (Labour) on Friday, 24 October 2025, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 28 October 2025. It was answered by Chris McDonald (Labour) on Monday, 3 November 2025 on behalf of the Department for Business and Trade.


Small Businesses: Clinical Trials

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to support small and medium-sized (a) biotechnology and (b) pharmaceutical companies to conduct clinical trials in the UK.

Answer

The Department for Business and Trade is committed to making the UK an outstanding place for life sciences companies to start and scale. The Office for Life Sciences has a target to see more scale-up finance raised by life sciences businesses in the UK than anywhere else in Europe. A dedicated stream of work is being delivered to support small and medium-sized biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

The Department of Health and Social Care and Department of Science, Innovation and Technology are developing tailored approaches for SMEs in parallel, to ensure that they can access the UK’s research infrastructure effectively.


Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
85013
Session
2024-26
Subjects
Biotechnology Small businesses Clinical trials
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk