The UK government’s tech department has set its sights on cutting red tape with the launch of a new regulatory office that it hopes will fast track the approval of new technologies.
Announced last year as a key manifesto pledge from Labour, the Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) will work with existing regulators to update rules to suit new technological requirements and speed up the approval process.
Speaking to UKTN, Science Minister Patrick Vallance said under the current system, businesses seeking regulatory approval for new products “need to go to 10 or 11 different regulators” that are designed to respond to existing sectors.
“[Businesses] end up therefore having to navigate something which is quite complicated,” Vallance said.
Vallance added that “regulators just don’t have the skills to deal with” new technologies as regulation is generally in place for products and services that already exist.
The science minister pointed to the work of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) during the Covid-19 pandemic as the basis for what the RIO will do.
Vallance said the medical regulator “changed its behaviour out of all recognition” to become “fast” and “agile” to quickly push through approval of treatments. In 2020 the MHRA became the first global medicine regulator to approve an RNA Covid-19 vaccine.
“[The MHRA] was able to work with companies at an early stage and do things differently, without in any way compromising its concern for safety and efficacy,” Vallance said.
“But it did that because it knew that there was political cover to change the way in which it behaved, and that’s the sort of thing that RIO is going to do.”
The RIO will set targets for response times for regulators, will inform the government of regulatory barriers to innovation and will encourage existing watchdogs to collaborate with each other.
Key areas the RIO will probe include engineering biology, space tech, AI in healthcare and autonomous vehicles.
“By speeding up approvals, providing regulatory certainty and reducing unnecessary delays, we’re curbing the burden of red tape so businesses and our public services can innovate and grow,” said Tech Secretary Peter Kyle.
“RIO will make sure UK companies are at the forefront of the next generation of technologies.”
The office, which will exist within the tech department replacing the Regulatory Horizons Council and the Regulators’ Pioneer Fund, is inviting applications for its chair.