Industry exercises option for midpoint review of VPAG Investment Fund
Under the VPAG agreement, £400 million is available under the VPAG Investment Fund. The funding aims to improve clinical trials, manufacturing, and HTA across the four nations of the UK. The scheme allowed for a midpoint review of the Investment Fund in June 2026.
Leela Barham looked at progress to date based upon reporting for the review and a 1st June webinar hosted by the ABPI. Spoiler alert: it’s mostly looking good, according to those getting the money, but the real question is what benefits will stay once funding goes away in 2029?
Additional funding
Money for the VPAG Investment Fund comes from an additional percentage payment on top of company payments made by scheme members to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). Companies that are part of VPAG pay a percentage of their sales back, mostly to help keep the drugs bill affordable.
The premium payment rate that is levied for the VPAG Investment Fund varies from 0.03% to 1.0% each year. 2026 has the highest at 1.0%, tying into the midpoint review.
The DHSC has the responsibility for fair and legal use of the funds, although there is industry representation in governing groups. That probably explains why there was a midpoint review agreed, just to provide a formal opportunity for the industry to check how things are going. The industry doesn’t have a role in decision-making for funding allocations. But the ABPI could give 12 months’ notice and stop companies paying extra in the last 18 months of VPAG if the funding isn’t delivering in line with plans.
Clinical trials
The VPAG set out how 75% of the £400 million would be focused on clinical trials, by boosting workforce capacity, resources, and infrastructure to speed up delivery of commercial trials in the UK. That focus on clinical trials is evident in reporting, although actual funding allocations haven’t been set out in a mid-point review tracker.
A delivery tracker put together by the Office of Life Sciences (OLS) working with relevant agencies across the UK, highlighted how UK Clinical Research Delivery (UKCRD) KPIs already show a “marked improvement in study set-up times and better delivery to time-and-target.”
There’s good news in the details, too; there are now 15 NIHR Commercial Research Delivery Centres (CRDCs) operational, having been established in April 2025. The original aim was for 12 in England. Plus, there are more primary care CRDCs. Funding calls have already been made for 2025/26 and more are planned for the 2026/27. They included capital investment for infrastructure all the way through to digital site file management systems.
Scotland also has CRDCs set up, with four now operational, plus Service Level Agreements in place between the CRDCs hosting Health Board and the chief scientific officer. Hub-and-spoke ways of working on track, as is targeted investmentin Scotland. That includes plans for GP fellowship and ATMP support, amongst other activities.
One CRDC has been set up in Northern Ireland, with VPAG-funded posts 80% filled, the remainder are anticipated to be filled by the summer. A mobile recruitment vehicle is also due to be completed by the summer. Capacity has additionally been boosted for the management team of the Northern Ireland Clinical Research Network Portfolio Management Team. A centrifuge was funded, too.
A Welsh CRDC is also operational, alongside a new Wales Primary Care and Community Research Delivery Network with a national team and three regional leads in post. Themed funding calls were also run.
At the UK level, the ABPI has consulted with members on investment. That’s been used to support decisions made. Plus, there’s a CRDC UK Network to coordinate the work of the CRDCs across the UK that sits alongside the NIHRS Life Sciences Industry Hub. That helps provide a single-entry point for companies. NIHR chief executive Lucy Chappell said that the efforts had “turbo-charged the front door and the whole offer to industry.” According to internal management information, 28 studies were placed in CRDCs in more than one country within the UK up to March 2026.
These are just some highlights, much more is being done, according to the review materials.
Manufacturing
A fifth of the VPAG Investment Fund was planned to support manufacturing. That included investment in capabilities to help deliver sustainable manufacturing in line with the ambitions to achieve net zero, via the SMMIP.
Grand Challenges, as well as Collaborative Research and Development (CR&D) open calls, have been set out and that’s resulted in grant awards. Projects are diverse; from looking at beyond single use plastics to industrialising UK bio-based solvents for global medicines manufacturing. Industry has pledged additional funding in co-investment too. CR&D grants of £13 million were awarded in January 2025 and a further £61 million in October/November 2025. Industry pledged £4.3 million and £23 million, respectively.
Further funding rounds are planned for August/September 2026.
Innovative HTA
Around 5% of the VPAG Investment Fund was anticipated to go into supporting NICE, the SMC, and the AWTTC and the Northern Ireland Department of Health. The ambition was to improve pre- and post-assessment methods and processes for access and adoption of clinically- and cost-effective medicines.
Namechecked in the scheme is the HTA Innovation Laboratory at NICE, as well as accelerating the adoption of recommendations from Technology Appraisals into clinical guidelines from NICE and their neighbour, the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network. UK PharmaScan was also to benefit from funding for a rebuild.
The HTA Lab has delivered 10 projects since 2023. They’ve ranged from use of AI to novel sources of evidence and environmental sustainability, amongst others.
Incorporating TAs into guidelines is also going well; 424 TAs in a backlog of 520 have been published or ruled out for inclusion in clinical guidelines. Boosting the work to get NICE guidance into practice has led to four toolkits in 2025/26 covering obesity, asthma, type 2 diabetes, COPD treatment dupilumab, plus others not named. The Innovation Scorecard is also referenced to show increasing prescribing.
Coming for Scotland is a new SMC HTA Methodology Guide, expected in the summer. Scottish staffers have also been involved in three HTA Lab projects. In addition, there’s a pilot due for a Patient Reported Outcomes Measures (PROMs) platform. Centralised reporting of indication-based patient access schemes (PAS) has also been enabled, and there is work exploring how to deliver this outside of cancer. Future work is going to look at the sustainability of new ways of working, aiming to make it business as usual.
It’s in Northern Ireland where there have been delays to planned work that covers further metrics for timely access, although, new policies have been delivered for paediatric license extensions and NICE IMF medicines. More support for HTA in Northern Ireland may come because of a workforce review expected this month, plus improved reporting.
In Wales, there’s been a delay to work on enhancing horizon scanning, but work is complete or on track in other areas that include a Medicines Access Database and dashboards for variation in prescribing, amongst other activities. Changes will come in the future as the whole system review of access policy and process that was published in October 2025 gets implemented.
PharmaScan is seeing a fresh start, reflecting a relatively old system, according to Ian Saunders of NICE, who has responsibility for the project. Vaccines are being newly added. Reporting is a key focus, too, to help people to see what’s coming that little bit more easily. Publication of the new PharmaScan is anticipated by April 2027.
ABPI survey running until 16th June
In addition to the work ABPI has done with scheme members through the various groups under the VPAG Investment Fund banner, the ABPI is also running a 7-question survey that will close at 11.59pm on 16th June to hear wider views.
Based upon the categories to describe their organisation, it’s open to any, from scheme members to partners in the life sciences ecosystem, including patient organisations.
That survey focuses on delivery against plans and how to get the most out of the VPAG Investment Fund in the remaining years. It’s too early to be definitive on impact, although, the ABPI does note that early impact and outcomes are in scope of the mid-point review.
Given the overall positive progress – there’s a lot of green completed and blue on track against projects under the VPAG Investment Plan tracker, according to those who have received the money so far – it would likely take pushback from companies at scale via the survey to call early time on the funding.
Against a backdrop of criticisms of VPAG from industry, plus more than a sprinkling of geopolitics, which led to a revised scheme that seems to have put industry and government on a better footing to work together, shutting down the VPAG investment funds seems unlikely. But the funding only lasts until the end of 2028, so the question is whether the benefits of the VPAG Investment Fund will remain after that?
