UK Life Sciences Must Shift From Pilot Innovation to Nationwide Adoption to Stay Globally Competitive

Key Points

• A parliamentary roundtable in the House of Commons examined why the UK struggles to scale life sciences innovation and artificial intelligence despite strong research foundations.
• The session was hosted by UKAI and UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation (UKHLSI), and chaired by Curia.
• Daniel Zeichner MP, Member of Parliament for Cambridge and former Minister of State, opened the discussion and highlighted life sciences as central to national growth.
• Professor Gillian Leng CBE, former Chief Executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), chaired the debate and said adoption barriers have persisted for decades.
• Helen Dent, Chief Executive of the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association (BIVDA), said diagnostics face slow procurement, unclear commissioning and limited capital funding.
• Matt Harrison of Bicycle Therapeutics warned that cybersecurity and data trust are now strategic, not just technical, issues for AI-enabled healthcare.
• Carlos Díez Ruza of Digital4Health Worldwide argued the UK’s core problem is system design, not a shortage of innovation.
• Contributors agreed that NHS procurement must move from buying products to buying outcomes, with clearer national standards.
• Nabil Jamshid of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust linked adoption to public trust, prevention and the wider social contract between citizens and the NHS.
• Joanne Bekis, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of UKHLSI, called for stronger regulation, clearer AI guidance and better funding routes for start-ups.

Westminster (Britain Today News) July 02, 2026 – A parliamentary roundtable held in the House of Commons has warned that the UK’s life sciences sector is rich in innovation but poor at turning it into national adoption, with parliamentarians, clinicians and industry leaders calling for clearer procurement routes, capital funding and stronger public trust in health data before promising pilots can scale into practical benefits for patients.

The session, titled Accelerating the Adoption of Innovation and Artificial Intelligence in UK Life Sciences, was hosted by UKAI and UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation (UKHLSI), and chaired by Curia. It brought together parliamentarians, clinicians, life sciences leaders, innovators, industry representatives and policy experts to discuss what needs to change if artificial intelligence, diagnostics, genomics, data and digital innovation are to deliver meaningful benefits for patients, the NHS and the wider UK economy.

What Was The Purpose Of The Parliamentary Roundtable?

The roundtable set out to examine a problem that has followed the UK’s life sciences sector for years: strong scientific discovery paired with weak national adoption. Participants agreed that the UK’s universities, research institutions, NHS datasets, clinical expertise and thriving innovation sector give it a genuine platform to lead the next generation of healthcare transformation. Yet across the sector, promising pilots too often fail to progress into system-wide use, leaving patients waiting years for proven technologies to reach them.

Why Did Daniel Zeichner MP Say Life Sciences Matter To National Growth?

Opening the session, Daniel Zeichner MP, the Member of Parliament for Cambridge and a former Minister of State, welcomed attendees to Parliament and stressed the importance of life sciences to the UK’s national growth agenda. He pointed to Cambridge’s standing as a major life sciences hub, while stressing that the policy challenge lies not only in scientific discovery but in ensuring that expertise and innovation are successfully translated into adoption further down the line.

How Did Professor Gillian Leng Frame The Adoption Challenge?

Chairing the discussion, Professor Gillian Leng CBE, former Chief Executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), set out the scale of the challenge facing the sector. Drawing on twenty years at NICE, she argued that implementation and adoption have long been among the greatest barriers facing new technologies in the NHS.

She recalled that debates about adoption were nothing new, noting that even in the early 2000s, discussions in Parliament focused on why proven technologies, such as insulin pumps, were not being taken up consistently across the NHS. She said that while some nationally driven innovations have been implemented quickly, many medical technologies still take years to reach widespread uptake.

Why Is Diagnostics Adoption Such A Persistent Problem?

Helen Dent, Chief Executive of the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association (BIVDA), told the roundtable that the adoption challenge facing AI-enabled diagnostics reflects a wider, pre-existing problem within the health system. She said:

“The biggest barrier to AI diagnostics is not just AI itself, but the NHS’s difficulty in adopting diagnostics more broadly.”

Dent pointed to a lack of clarity about what commissioners want, long procurement timelines, reimbursement challenges and fragmented decision-making across the NHS. She argued that while national procurement does not necessarily mean selecting a single supplier, AI diagnostics must be interoperable and aligned across the system if they are to work effectively for patients and clinicians alike.

What Role Does Capital Funding Play In Scaling Innovation?

A recurring theme throughout the roundtable was the need for dedicated capital funding. Dent argued that many innovative diagnostics and technologies require significant upfront investment, yet the NHS too often relies on long-term contractual arrangements that make it difficult to replace older equipment or create a viable route in for new technologies.

She warned that when innovators are forced to carry the cost of NHS adoption delays, the impact is felt not only by individual products but across the wider life sciences economy. In her words:

“Capital investment in innovation could support domestic companies, strengthen local skills and jobs, attract foreign direct investment, and create a more sustainable route for new technologies to reach patients.”

How Are Cybersecurity And Data Trust Linked To AI Adoption?

Matt Harrison, Vice President and Head of Information Technology and Cybersecurity at Bicycle Therapeutics, shifted the discussion towards data security and strategic risk. He argued that as AI becomes more embedded in drug discovery, clinical development and healthcare operations, cybersecurity and data integrity are no longer purely technical issues but matters central to organisational resilience and public trust.

Harrison said that AI is changing the cybersecurity landscape by enabling faster identification and exploitation of vulnerabilities. In response, he suggested that cybersecurity will increasingly need to become more automated, describing the aim as building a “self-healing envelope” around critical systems.

He also warned that public confidence remains essential to the sector’s future. As he put it:

“If citizens do not trust institutions to handle health data securely, the UK risks losing one of its greatest advantages: the ability to use health data responsibly to improve patient outcomes, support discovery, and grow the life sciences sector.”

Harrison further pointed to moves by regulators internationally to monitor clinical data more dynamically, suggesting the UK must consider how its own regulatory environment can support faster, safer development of novel therapies.

Why Does The UK Need A System Design Approach To Innovation?

Carlos Díez Ruza, Founder and Chairman of UKHLSI partners Digital4Health Worldwide, argued that the UK’s challenge is fundamentally one of system design rather than a shortage of ideas. Offering a global perspective, he said the UK does not lack innovation, pointing to its world-class universities, strong research base and large pool of innovators. The problem, he argued, is that too much innovation fails to move from pilot stage to scaled deployment.

Díez Ruza said the UK needs clearer pathways for adoption, better architecture and a more structured approach to integrating innovation across the health system. He noted that stakeholders often speak different languages, with innovators, clinicians, commissioners, procurement teams, regulators and policymakers all operating within systems that are not sufficiently aligned. He also drew comparisons with other international healthcare systems, arguing that the UK should be proud of its strengths but willing to learn from countries that have taken different approaches to prevention, incentives, integration and system governance.

One of the starkest points raised during the session was that pilots alone are not enough. Repeatedly testing promising innovations without creating routes to adoption, participants warned, risks wasting time, money and goodwill. The real question, they suggested, is not whether the UK can generate more pilots, but whether it can build the mechanisms needed to scale what already works.

How Must NHS Procurement Change To Support Innovation?

Procurement emerged as one of the strongest themes of the discussion. Participants argued that NHS procurement processes remain too slow, too fragmented and too focused on buying products rather than outcomes.

Dent argued that if government has already funded the development of an innovation, it should be far easier for the NHS to adopt it. She suggested that existing procurement rules are often interpreted in ways that create unnecessary barriers, adding that the problem is not always the law itself, but local procedures, risk aversion and outdated purchasing models.

The discussion also raised the need for national standards. Participants said a national decision-making framework would not mean choosing a single supplier for the whole NHS, but could instead establish minimum standards, evidence expectations, interoperability requirements and safety thresholds, while still allowing a range of suppliers to compete and innovate.

Several contributors noted that procurement teams within Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and NHS trusts are often asked to assess highly complex technologies without the specialist expertise needed to judge clinical value, technical performance, cybersecurity, data governance and interoperability, which can lead either to poor decisions or no decisions at all.

The COVID-19 pandemic was repeatedly cited as an example of what can happen when the system has urgency, clarity, funding and shared objectives. While no one argued for emergency procurement as a permanent model, participants suggested that lessons from the pandemic should be reviewed and applied to innovation adoption more broadly.
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What Is The Link Between Prevention, Public Confidence And Adoption?

The discussion moved beyond technology adoption to consider the wider purpose of healthcare reform. Nabil Jamshid, Director of Corporate Governance at Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, argued that the debate must be linked to the NHS’s wider shift towards prevention, community care and digital transformation. He questioned whether enough attention is being paid to building public confidence in the use of health data and AI.

Jamshid suggested that a major challenge is the need to renew the social contract between citizens and the health system. He observed that people often allow private technology companies to hold vast amounts of personal data, yet may feel more concerned about the NHS using data to improve care, a contradiction he said points to a wider need for public engagement, explanation and trust-building.

Dent echoed this point, noting that most people are taught to interact with the NHS only when they are unwell. She said that if the health system is to become more preventive and digitally enabled, citizens will need to understand how to engage with it differently.

What Did UKHLSI Leaders Say About Moving From Debate To Delivery?

In closing reflections, Joanne Bekis, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of UKHLSI, argued that the UK has major opportunities but also clear barriers to overcome. She highlighted the need for better regulation, clearer AI guidance, improved procurement, capital funding for innovation and stronger incentives for start-ups.

Bekis said the UK is “data rich,” with the NHS number providing a potentially powerful basis for joined-up care and research. However, she cautioned that this opportunity can only be realised if systems can communicate with each other and data is used safely, effectively and consistently.

Natasa Mihajlovic, from the UKAI Life Sciences Working Group, reflected that the session had focused not only on what needs to change, but on how change can happen. She argued that businesses need a clearer platform through which to understand standards, engage with the NHS and contribute to responsible adoption.

What Is The Final Message From The Roundtable?

The key message from the roundtable was that the UK is not short of innovation. It is short of adoption pathways that are clear, properly funded, nationally supported and designed around outcomes. Participants agreed that if the UK wants to lead in AI and life sciences, it must move beyond fragmented pilots and create the conditions for proven innovation to spread, through stronger national direction, better procurement, smarter regulation, secure and trusted data use, and a more serious focus on prevention and patient benefit.

Professor Leng concluded that the challenge is substantial but achievable, saying the UK needs

“national drive, clear direction, the right systems, and the right incentives.”

As she noted, the opportunity is already there. The task now is to turn it into delivery.

BIVDA and Bicycle Therapeutics are members of Curia’s Health, Care, and Life Sciences Research Group.