Guidance: Infectious diseases: develop diagnostics in the UK

The UK is a global leader in infectious diseases diagnostics (IDD).

The UK has a long history of innovation in the area of infectious diseases and IDD.

UK companies continue to develop and commercialise world leading products in this field.

The UK is a leader in the global fight against infectious diseases, with an ambitious cross-government 5 year antimicrobial resistance (AMR) strategy. The UK supports a unique ecosystem for UK companies to research, test and deliver, new diagnostic products.

The UK’s thriving diagnostics industry fully exploits the UK’s world leading research centres. These include 2 of the world’s top schools of tropical medicine.

The Centre for Clinical Infection and Diagnostics Research at St Thomas’s Hospital, London has worked with Enigma Diagnostics to develop rapid PCR tests. The Centre of Excellence in Infectious Diseases Research in Liverpool is engaging with companies to progress diagnostics in the areas of malaria, TB, HIV, NTDs, sepsis, and c. difficile.

Genomics England is the largest national sequencing project of its kind in the world. It is sequencing 100,000 genomes from 70,000 patients, providing a valuable resource for diagnostics development, particularly in areas such as liquid biopsies.

Clinical research infrastructure in the UK

UK diagnostic companies benefit from the world’s most integrated clinical research infrastructure, with the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), facilitating the fast tracking of clinical studies to accelerate market entry.