The UK has long recognised the importance of early insight into emerging medicines and health technologies. Horizon scanning plays a critical role in enabling the NHS, regulators and industry to prepare for what is coming next, supporting better planning, earlier engagement and faster patient access to innovative medicines and more effective use of existing treatments.
Increasingly, it also forms an important part of building a more resilient and responsive healthcare system, capable of adapting to scientific, operational and population health challenges.
As the UK continues to advance its Life Sciences Vision, the strategic value of this capability is only increasing. Breakthrough therapies are becoming more complex, development timelines are evolving, and expectations around speed of access are rising. At the same time, health systems are under growing pressure to respond more effectively to changing patient needs, financial constraints and supply-side uncertainty.
Through our work with organisations across the health and life sciences ecosystem, including recent work with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to modernise UK PharmaScan (UKPS), we see a consistent theme emerging. The real opportunity lies in how that insight is used.
This is not limited to new and innovative treatments. Horizon scanning also plays an important role in identifying when medicines come off patent and biosimilar alternatives become available. In these cases, timely insight can help the NHS act quickly to realise cost efficiencies, strengthen supply chain resilience and reinvest in patient care. Ensuring the system can respond at pace to both innovation and optimisation is increasingly important.
Moving beyond insight alone
The UK already has strong foundations in place. UKPS, led by NICE, provides a trusted, authoritative view of new and emerging medicines. It plays a vital role in supporting system-wide awareness and coordination. These capabilities are becoming increasingly important in supporting the long-term future of the UK healthcare system, enabling organisations to anticipate change earlier, coordinate more effectively and respond with greater confidence. This becomes particularly important as healthcare systems face increasing pressure to respond rapidly to changing clinical demand, emerging technologies and wider system constraints.
However, as with many mature capabilities, the challenge is no longer simply generating insight. It is ensuring that insight translates effectively into action across a complex and distributed system.
In our work with NICE, this challenge was evident across the stakeholder landscape. Horizon scanning sits at the intersection of multiple organisations, each with distinct roles, priorities and timelines, including regulators, NHS organisations, policymakers and pharmaceutical companies. While all rely on early visibility of new products, they apply that insight in different ways. This includes both preparing for the introduction of new therapies and responding quickly to opportunities such as biosimilar uptake, where timing directly impacts system value.
Aligning these perspectives to enable timely, coordinated action is inherently challenging. It is also where the greatest opportunity for improvement lies.
Designing for a complex ecosystem
Modernising horizon scanning capability requires a shift in thinking, from a standalone system to a connected service embedded within a wider ecosystem. Building a more resilient healthcare system depends not only on visibility of emerging therapies and technologies, but on the ability of organisations across the system to act on insight in a coordinated and timely way.
Through Discovery, we worked with NICE and its partners to understand not just what information is needed, but how it flows between organisations, how it supports decision-making at different stages, and how it can adapt as new evidence and priorities emerge.
This included engaging stakeholders across:
- NICE
- NHS England
- Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)
- The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI)
- The wider pharmaceutical industry
What became clear is that any future approach must reflect the realities of operating across organisational boundaries. Data standards, governance models and user needs vary, and solutions must balance consistency with flexibility.
Our experience reinforced a key principle. Technology platforms are a critical enabler, but they are only one part of the solution. Equal attention must be given to service design, stakeholder alignment, and the practicalities of adoption.
This challenge is likely to grow as the scope of horizon scanning evolves beyond medicines alone, including medical devices and diagnostics, where pathways to adoption and guidance can be even more complex.
The role of Discovery in shaping the future
Establishing a shared understanding across such a complex landscape is where Discovery plays a critical role.
In our work with NICE, the Discovery phase focused on building an evidence base to inform future decisions. This included:
- Deep analysis of user needs, behaviours and pain points
- Mapping the current service landscape
- Identifying opportunities aligned to the Life Sciences Vision
- Conducting a rigorous technology options assessment, including build versus buy
This approach enabled NICE to move forward with a clearer and more confident view of how horizon scanning capability can evolve to support future system needs, balancing innovation, usability and long-term sustainability.
Enabling faster access and better system value
At its core, the evolution of horizon scanning is about improving outcomes, ensuring that patients can benefit from new treatments as quickly and effectively as possible, while also enabling the health system to make better use of existing therapies and innovations. More broadly, it is about strengthening the resilience, adaptability and long-term sustainability of healthcare delivery in an increasingly complex environment.
Through our work across health and life sciences, we see clear opportunities created by strengthening how insight is generated, shared and acted upon:
- Support earlier and more coordinated planning across the NHS
- Enable more effective engagement between industry and the health system
- Reduce delays between innovation emerging and being available to patients
- Accelerate uptake of cost-effective treatments such as biosimilars
This aligns closely with the ambitions set out in the UK’s Life Sciences Vision and wider sector plans, which emphasise the importance of creating an environment where innovation can be adopted at pace. As the landscape evolves, similar challenges are emerging in areas such as medical devices and diagnostics, where timely guidance and adoption pathways will be equally critical.
A collaborative path forward
The future of horizon scanning in the UK is not about replacing what already works well, but about building on strong foundations to meet new challenges.
Our ongoing work with NICE through Alpha and Beta phases reflects a shared commitment to delivering a more agile, connected and responsive service. It also reinforces the importance of partnership in delivering complex, national-scale programmes.
Looking ahead, the challenge extends beyond medicines. As NICE continues to expand its focus into medical technologies and devices, there is a growing need to ensure that guidance, insight and adoption pathways evolve at a similar pace.
For organisations operating in this space, success depends on the ability to:
- Work collaboratively across organisational boundaries
- Combine technical expertise with sector understanding
- Remain flexible as requirements evolve
- Maintain a clear focus on outcomes
In complex environments, progress is rarely linear. It depends on trust, shared purpose and the ability to translate insight into action.
At Informed Solutions, we are proud to support organisations like NICE in shaping services that strengthen the UK’s leadership in life sciences, improve the resilience and responsiveness of healthcare systems, and help ensure patients can benefit from innovation more quickly and effectively.
