GPs could be offered bonuses to increase patient numbers in clinical trials

Package of measures for UK life sciences sector also includes overhauling regulatory process for new medicines

GPs could be offered financial incentives to help recruit patients for clinical trials under ambitious government plans to quadruple the participants in commercial clinical trials in the next four years.

Unveiling a 650m package of measures for the UK life sciences sector, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said patients would get quicker access to new medicines and the government would cut the bureaucratic burden of approving clinical trials, which has been blamed for a rapid decline in NHS-based trials for cancer and Alzheimer's drugs. Other measures announced include funding for an upgrade of the UK Biobank and details of a proposed train route between Oxford and Cambridge.