Anglia Ruskin Clinical Trials Unit
Innovative trials. Transforming care.
Clinical evidence for health innovation, medical devices and better patient care.
Innovative trials. Transforming care.
Clinical evidence for health innovation, medical devices and better patient care.
ARCTU supports researchers, NHS partners, startups and medical technology companies to design, deliver and analyse high-quality clinical studies.
We are part of Anglia Ruskin University's wider health innovation ecosystem – connecting clinical trials expertise to biomedical science, engineering, AI, business incubation and real-world NHS adoption.
Clinical trials are at a turning point.
The pace at which novel treatments, medical devices and AI-driven diagnostics are entering healthcare is faster than our traditional evidence frameworks were designed to handle. The challenge – and the opportunity – is to build trial infrastructure that is agile enough to keep up.
We are building a clinical trials unit fit for the future – one where the integration of novel treatments, devices and artificial intelligence into healthcare is matched by the rigorous, streamlined evidence infrastructure needed to evaluate them.
Professor Bassel Wattar
Chair of Reproductive Medicine and Surgery
Medical Director, Anglia Ruskin Clinical Trials Unit
You have a technology that shows promise. We help you design and deliver the clinical evidence needed to satisfy regulators, commissioners and investors.
You have a research question, a grant application, or a study in progress. ARCTU provides end-to-end support from protocol design through to trial management, data systems and reporting.
Research participants and public contributors are central to everything we do.
From CE-marked devices to AI-driven diagnostics, we design studies that meet regulatory standards and generate market-ready evidence.
We cover the full study lifecycle – from early feasibility through to fully powered effectiveness trials designed for NHS adoption.
Expert statisticians work with you from protocol conception through to analysis.
Robust eCRF design, secure data capture, and validated randomisation systems underpin every study.
We embed Patient and Public Involvement from the earliest stages and maintain active NHS partnerships across the East of England.
Healthcare is being transformed by a new generation of innovations: targeted biologics and cell therapies, next-generation medical devices, AI-powered diagnostic tools, and digital health platforms that extend clinical care beyond the hospital. Each of these represents enormous potential – and each demands a robust, well-designed clinical trial before it can be safely adopted at scale.
Yet the gap between the speed of innovation and the pace of evidence generation remains wide. Trials can be slow, expensive and poorly adapted to the realities of modern healthcare delivery. Too often, promising innovations wait years for clinical validation – and too often, the trial designs used to evaluate them were built for a different era.
ARCTU was established with a clear purpose: to build a clinical trials unit genuinely equipped for this moment. Our approach brings together three elements we believe are essential to making innovation work in practice.
Methodological innovation
We use adaptive and Bayesian trial designs, master protocols and novel statistical frameworks to evaluate multiple innovations efficiently – without sacrificing scientific rigour. The same evidence standards that apply to a drug trial apply equally to a device or an algorithm.
Integration of AI
AI is not only a subject of evaluation at ARCTU – it is part of how we conduct trials. From AI-assisted recruitment and eligibility screening to machine learning in data monitoring and safety review, we are embedding AI into our trial operations to make studies faster, smarter and more reliable.
NHS partnerships built for adoption
Evidence only creates value when it reaches patients. Our close relationships with NHS Trusts across the East of England – and our embedding within ARU’s wider innovation ecosystem – mean we design trials not only to generate evidence, but to enable adoption. We work alongside regulators, commissioners and NHS innovation pathways from the earliest stages.
We welcome researchers, clinicians, innovators and NHS partners who share this ambition. Whether you are developing a novel treatment, a medical device or an AI-driven clinical tool, ARCTU can help you build the evidence that makes innovation real.
Translational biomedical science, life sciences and clinical research.
ARTISS is a randomised controlled trial comparing standard closure of the abdominal wound during breast reconstruction surgery, with or without the addition of a tissue sealant (ARTISS), on post-surgery fluid drainage duration.
ASGARD is a feasibility study of a randomised controlled trial comparing steroids, the safest treatment currently available for acute gout attacks in patients with chronic kidney disease, with a newer treatment called Anakinra.
Autism-CHIME is a randomised controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of individual sessions of improvisational music therapy to support autistic children develop their social and communication skills.
DUSTER is a mixed methods study to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and impact on clinical decision making of implementing an integrated ultrasound surveillance programme for patients after lower limb endovascular therapy.
Talk to us about any aspect of clinical trials, evidence and research.
