Cancer care is entering a new era. Advances in genomics, biomarker science and precision medicines are transforming what a diagnosis can mean for patients, not just in terms of innovation but also new pathways to more impactful treatments sooner.
The National Cancer Plan, published by the government earlier this year, is a promising step. Its focus on expanding genomic testing, widening access to liquid biopsies, establishing a National Inherited Cancer Predisposition Register and strengthening the UK’s clinical trials offer are significant. They reflect an understanding that the next phase of reform will be driven by precision diagnostics and a stronger research infrastructure, signalling a serious intent to modernise cancer pathways.
Improved access to precision diagnostics will lead to more effective clinical trials in the UK, better care for patients and a fertile ground for the UK to drive innovation in healthcare, priorities that Johnson & Johnson, and the wider cancer community, have long advocated for. They are essential building blocks allowing patients to be treated for and live well with cancer. However, this will only be possible if the UK population can also reliably access innovative medicines via these diagnostic approaches, with the health system set up to adopt treatments at pace and scale.
As an oncology company with more than 30 years of experience across lung, bladder, prostate and blood cancers, we see how innovation translates into real system and patient impact. Today, 3.5 million people in Britain live with cancer, expected to rise to four million by 2030. Meeting future patient needs not only requires continued scientific progress but a willingness to rethink how cancer care is organised and delivered. Without embedding innovative medicines centrally within its implementation, the National Cancer Plan’s survival ambitions will be harder to deliver.
Innovation changes what is possible. In bladder cancer, where the standard of care has seen little change for decades, we are developing targeted therapies and novel drug delivery systems designed to intervene earlier and more effectively. In blood cancers, we are advancing precision medicines that harness a patient’s own immune cells to recognise and attack malignant cells. In prostate cancer, genetic testing is increasingly guiding risk stratification and treatment selection.
Diagnostics, genomics and service reform only deliver value when they are directly connected to treatments that can change outcomes. Identifying a biomarker is only meaningful if it directs a patient to a targeted therapy, and expanding genomic testing is only impactful if it connects patients to treatments designed for the biology driving their disease. Used together, diagnostics and medicines enable the right treatment to reach the right patient at the right time, avoiding repeated cycles of less effective care. In blood cancers, for example, introducing novel therapies earlier significantly increases the likelihood of durable remission, extending survival and helping patients maintain a career, family life and independence.
Innovation in medicines is also reshaping how care is delivered. Across haematology, newer therapies are designed for simpler administration, no longer requiring long, time-intensive infusions delivered by specialist teams. This creates opportunities to move care out of high-intensity hospital settings and closer to home, supporting the government’s ambition to shift care into the community.
As we work collectively to reduce avoidable admissions and ease workforce pressure, medicines policy – particularly around the uptake of innovation – must be treated as a primary driver of service transformation, freeing capacity across the healthcare system.
Crucially, our focus is not simply on developing medicines but on ensuring the system can use them. Recent NHS partnerships have included aligning diagnostic and treatment pathways in bladder cancer, supporting a redesigned multiple myeloma service model in Wales, applying predictive AI to identify high-risk lung cancer patients earlier in south-west London, and collaborating across Humber and North Yorkshire to improve haematology and oncology pathways and patient experience.
For me, this is what true delivery looks like, partnering to align research, diagnostics, treatment and service design so innovation flows through the system, rather than sitting at the edges.
Partnership means more than simply consulting. It is about working together to achieve common goals for the benefit of patients and society. We want to ensure scientific breakthroughs can be translated into measurable change for patients in the UK.
To support this, implementation of the National Cancer Plan should be focused across three areas. Firstly, co-designing implementation. Scaling biomarker and genetic testing requires coordinated investment in laboratory capacity, workforce training, interoperable data systems and referral pathways. Industry, the NHS and government must partner to align on how genomic testing expansion is operationalised and implemented, not sequentially but in parallel with treatment readiness.
We must also align research, routine access and adoption. Strengthening the UK’s clinical trials offer is contingent on a healthy life sciences innovation cycle from trials through to access and uptake. A country that recruits well into trials, but lags in routine uptake of approved medicines, sends a mixed signal, weakening investment potential and impacting patient outcomes. A first-choice research partner must also be a predictable launch environment, with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) appraisal decisions that support timely access to innovative medicines.
Finally, there needs to be shared accountability for outcomes. Survival improvements do not derive from policy alone but from timely testing, rapid evaluation, confident prescribing and sustainable commissioning. We must work together on agreed outcomes and joint accountability.
The UK has the scientific base, NHS scale and research heritage to lead in precision oncology. Turning that potential into better outcomes depends on how innovation is implemented in practice. Scaling biomarker and genomic testing, and ensuring predictable and competitive access frameworks, are essential to delivering on the National Cancer Plan’s ambitions.
Innovative medicines must be embedded explicitly within the plan’s implementation, not as an optional addition but as a core driver of survival improvement, pathway redesign and ‘living well with cancer’.
With shared commitment across government, the NHS, industry and academia, the UK can move from promise to practice – delivering world-class outcomes and world-class science.
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