The Future of Healthcare and Life Sciences Research Conference 2026

The UK’s health data and life sciences research agenda is at an inflection point. Infrastructure is being built, new services are being launched, regulation is evolving, and the pressure on clinical trial delivery is intensifying. In May 2026, we brought together senior leaders from across the NHS, industry, academia, and international health systems at the Royal Society of Medicine for the second edition of our annual conference — The future of healthcare and life sciences research conference — a deliberately focused event designed for honest conversation rather than set-piece presentations.

This year’s discussions were anchored in concrete realities: the Health Data Research Service moving from commitment to implementation, NHS trusts navigating the gap between interoperability in principle and commercial trial competitiveness in practice, and the MHRA working through what real-time pharmacovigilance could look like with better data infrastructure. We also heard from Germany’s National Research Data Infrastructure network on what it takes to build federated data systems at scale — and what the UK can learn from it.

The event came a couple weeks after the publication of the HDRS Digital Ecosystem Analysis, a Wellcome-commissioned independent review of the UK’s health data research infrastructure, produced by the Emrys Health consortium, which includes Newmarket Strategy.

The full write-up covers what was said, what was contested, and where the real pressure points lie. Read it here.

We are already planning the third edition. The format will stay deliberately tight-knit and high-level. If you want to be part of it — as a speaker, a sponsor, or a participant — we would like to hear from you. Please email info@newmarket-strategy.com with the subject “The future of healthcare and life sciences research conference 2027”