The respiratory research and innovation sector is struggling to make meaningful change.
LRIG, a group of expert organisations and individuals determined to drive progress in lung research, have identified nine steps to deliver better outcomes, to save and improve the lives of people living with lung conditions.
1. Convey the urgency of the need for respiratory research and innovation
Even though someone dies from a lung condition every 5 minutes in the UK, respiratory disease doesn’t garner the same attention as other diseases such as cancer or cardiovascular disease. We need to develop a compelling and emotive case about the devastating impact of respiratory disease in order to reduce the stigma, raise the sense of urgency, and change people’s attitudes towards lung health, both in the general public and decision makers.
2. Define and communicate the challenges that need to be overcome
While the Life Sciences Vision sets out the overarching ambitions of respiratory research and innovation, there needs to be clear, targeted goals for the sector to rally around. We need to better articulate the biggest challenges that exist in respiratory and how they align with the ambitions of major funders, so we can provide a clear path forward for investment.
3. Encourage stronger collaboration across sector
Poor collaborative working across the respiratory sector, such as researchers working in disease silos, is a major barrier to advancement. While there has been some progress in recent years, we need to develop methods, incentives, and connected data platforms for the respiratory sector to be better at sharing expertise, techniques and access to patients and samples from trials across the UK.
4. Urgently develop better diagnostic and screening tools for respiratory diseases
The lack of adequate diagnostic or screening tools for respiratory conditions is a significant barrier to progress in respiratory research and innovation. It is crucial that we urgently develop and validate diagnostics tools and techniques that are easy to use and cost-effective, the respiratory equivalent to cholesterol and blood pressure in cardiovascular disease.
5. Shift our current research approach to develop earlier interventions
The current approach to interventions is too late for most respiratory diseases. Lack of appropriate research and preventative intervention mean that we are missing opportunities to provide earlier support and save lives. We need to put pressure on the respiratory sector to prioritise earlier interventions by demonstrating how current approaches in respiratory research leave it too late to reverse the long-term, often irreversible, damage.
6. Improve respiratory clinical trials recruitment and other key infrastructure
Clinical trials are struggling across the board but there are several respiratory-specific factors, including people who experience breathlessness finding it difficult to travel to trials and believing that they have brought their respiratory disease on themselves. We can overcome these obstacles by breaking down the barriers to recruitment into respiratory clinical trials to allow more patients to take part, such as by driving the use of remote monitoring tools, and by improving the infrastructure that exists around research and innovation.
7. Speed up early adoption and roll-out of new diagnostic and intervention technologies
It is widely known that new diagnostic and intervention technologies struggle to make headway with adoption and NHS provision, despite the efforts of NHS England and the accelerated access collaborative (AAC). We need to identify ways to speed up early adoption and roll-out of new technologies that meet unmet needs for both patients and the health service, particularly low-risk, high-impact innovations.
8. Support the recruitment and development of outstanding world-class respiratory leaders
The research and innovation workforce struggles to retain non-clinical researchers due to a lack of continuity in funding. In addition, clinical academics lack options and funding to train and find it hard to take time out of clinical work. We need to support the recruitment of outstanding world-class respiratory leaders and attract and develop younger researchers to bring them into the clinical academic fold and progress them into a career focused on respiratory research.
9. Increase engagement with pharmaceutical companies
Lack of progress could reduce engagement with pharmaceutical companies. We need to consider how to make respiratory research an innovation an attractive investment to pharmaceutical companies and SMEs and ensure collaboration with public and charitable stakeholders to ensure they remain dedicated to working in this space.