Drop in clin­i­cal tri­al num­bers un­der­scores drug­mak­er­s' fears over Brex­it that trace back over a year

A week ago, Re­car­dio an­nounced it would cut UK tri­al sites out of its up­com­ing heart drug study cit­ing Brex­it fears that quick­ly re­ver­ber­at­ed across the in­dus­try. It turns out that the lit­tle biotech was mere­ly fol­low­ing a trend that al­ready emerged last year.

In 2017, a to­tal of 597 tri­als were launched in Britain — 25% low­er than the av­er­age be­tween 2009-16, ac­cord­ing to an analy­sis by Fitch. In those eight years, the av­er­age num­ber of new clin­i­cal tri­als was 806.

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