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Learn More About CRF

Opened in 2009, providing state of the art purpose built facilities, embedded within the Royal Liverpool Hospital which also provides specialist equipment, 24 hour emergency coverage and access to ITU, the CRF offers a safe and regulated environment to perform clinical research trials to the highest possible standards. The unit moved to the new Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust site in October 2022, which increased the number of beds and the clinical facilities.

With pooled expertise and resources from the neighbouring University of Liverpool,the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital and Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, the CRF offers a wealth of knowledge and experience in pharmaceutical trials.

In addition, with the rapidly expanding databases of volunteers in both healthy and patient populations the CRF is fully equipped to cover all aspects of performing clinical trials from phases I-IV.

All work undertaken in the CRF is underpinned by a strict risk management approval process aligned to policies and procedures which ensure that the quality of both care and research are to the highest standard possible. The CRF has maintained its reputation for excellence, achieving successful inspections according to UK Clinical Trials Legislation and EU Directives, as well as GCP inspections. In 2013 the CRF achieved MHRA supplementary Phase 1 accreditation and was successfully continued to maintain accreditation to date.

The Liverpool NIHR CRF is a new state of the art, purpose-built facility, embedded within the Liverpool University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, with dedicated clinical space, laboratories, and staff to offer a safe and regulated environment to perform clinical research to the highest standards.

Additional specialist satellite NIHR CRF facilities are available within:

  • Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust
  • Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Local academic collaborations include:

  • University of Liverpool
  • Centre for Experimental Therapeutics (TherEx) at the University of Liverpool
  • Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
  • Liverpool John Moore’s University
  • MerseyCare NHS Trust

The CRF was established in 2009 to undertake early-phase clinical trials for new treatments across all disease areas.  The CRF provides extensive capabilities to conduct the highest risk early phase and experimental medicine studies with pre-clinical development, trial design, drug safety and study conduct.

It supports studies closely aligned to our academic strengths and local population needs within five primary therapeutic areas:

  • infection
  • cardiovascular
  • inflammation
  • oncology
  • neurosciences/mental health

We offer 24/7 inpatient and outpatient research facilities, with over 26 dedicated research beds, used interchangeably as consultant rooms for the individual needs of the research. Our specialised support is offered through the hospital’s Medical Emergency Team & other on-call services, including high-dependency and intensive care facilities.

Are you interested in running early phase clinical trials?CALL US

Our Capabilities

See What We Can Offer You

  • AME Oncology
  • Archiving
  • Cardiology
  • CNS
  • Data Management
  • Dermatology
  • Dose Escalation
  • Dose Routes Utilised
  • Ethics Submissions
  • First In Man
  • Gastroenterology
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Laboratory
  • Metabolic Medicine and Diabetes
  • Monitoring
  • Neurodegenerative Diseases
  • Quality Assurance
  • Pharmacokinetics
  • Pharmacy
  • Phase I
  • Products Handled
  • Protocol Writing
  • Renal Impairment or Clinical Trials in Renal Patients
  • Recruitment
  • Regulatory Services
  • Respiratory Diseases
  • Report Writing
  • Statistics
  • Vaccine Trials

Why choose the CRF?

Our Facilities

The Clinical Research Facility is one of only two MHRA-accredited first-into human units embedded within the NHS. It is a 26-bedded unit (comprising a mixture of open bays and individual rooms) providing highly flexible space and capacity for a large range of study types (including for radio-labelled studies, participants requiring isolation for infectious diseases such as COVID-19, and viral/bacterial challenge studies. Within the Facility, we have dedicated rooms for screening and outpatient follow-up, and a multi-functional procedure suite supports bronchoscopy, CSF sampling, biopsies & joint aspiration.

  • Principal Investigators who are experienced Clinical Pharmacologists
  • Team of scientists, physicians, nurses and laboratory staff
  • Project Management service
  • Data Management service
  • Laboratory service for sample processing and local laboratories for lab safety assessments
  • Co-located storage facilities at -20C and -70C with central temperature monitoring
  • Clinical Trials Pharmacy and Radiopharmacy
  • Aseptic preparation of IMP as well as Advanced Therapeutics
  • 26 beds for overnight stays including two 4 bed bay areas
  • Multi-functional procedure suite supports bronchoscopy, CSF sampling, biopsies & joint aspiration
  • Telemetry system for cardiac safety monitoring
  • Access to a diverse patient population andhealthy volunteers
  • Access to Specialist Hospital Services such as Nuclear Medicine, MRI, CT/PET, Ultrasound, Echo and many others

All equipment regularly maintained and accompanied by appropriate service and calibration documentation.

CONTACT US

In your search for sites that can run Early Phase Clinical Trials in patients, do you often find yourselves frustrated that the site has access to a patient population, but no overnight bed capacity; has patient access but no experience in the intricacies of clinical pharmacology studies?

Well your search is over. The Royal Liverpool Hospital Clinical Research Facility has the following facilities to deliver an excellent study for you.

Our Services

Quality

  • Fully compliant with GCP

  • MHRA inspected & phase 1 accredited

  • Quality Control and independent Quality Assurance Team

  • Monitoring

Our Services

Access to Volunteers (C4C)

The CRF manages a validated database of volunteers, consisting of both healthy and patient populations. With direct links to clinics within the hospital, and recruitment staff working within such clinics, these numbers are consistently replenished. The database can be used to quickly extract metric and contact information of potential participants and to produce reports about the feasibility for potential trials.

Our Services

All You Need

As the CRF is embedded within the Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust we can access services to facilitate a variety of study procedures such as endoscopies, bronchoscopies, MRI scans, CT scans, biopsies, nuclear medicine, and various ophthalmology procedures.

The CRF is experienced in conducting high quality research in a variety of topic areas and is ideal to perform clinical trials from phase I to IV due to its:

Study Pre-Development:

  • ​Study Design & Advice

  • Protocol Development

  • ​IB Development

  • ​Laboratory & Pharmacy Manual Development

Study Services:

  • Trial / Project Management
  • Regulatory submission
  • Data Management
  • Recruitment
  • Clinical Delivery
  • State of the art purpose-built facilities for up to 26 patients including two 4 bed bays
  • Embedded within a large hospital providing direct access to 24 hour emergency facilities and ITU
  • MHRA Phase 1 Supplementary and Standard Accreditation
  • Services in data management, statistics, monitoring and Trial Management
  • Partnerships with The University of Liverpool and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
  • Collaboration with the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital and Clatterbridge Cancer Centre
  • A rapidly expanding database of both healthy volunteer and patient populations (C4C)

Are you interested in running early phase clinical trials?CALL US

Our Capabilities

See What We Can Offer You

  • AME Oncology
  • Archiving
  • Cardiology
  • CNS
  • Data Management
  • Dermatology
  • Dose Escalation
  • Dose Routes Utilised
  • Ethics Submissions
  • First In Man
  • Gastroenterology
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Laboratory
  • Metabolic Medicine and Diabetes
  • Monitoring
  • Neurodegenerative Diseases
  • Quality Assurance
  • Pharmacokinetics
  • Pharmacy
  • Phase I
  • Products Handled
  • Protocol Writing
  • Renal Impairment or Clinical Trials in Renal Patients
  • Recruitment
  • Regulatory Services
  • Respiratory Diseases
  • Report Writing
  • Statistics
  • Vaccine Trials

The Team

The CRF Team consists of a team of full time, permanent staff including; Physicians, Nurses, Project Management, Clinical Research Assistants, Laboratory Technicians, Recruitment Specialists, Data Specialists and Clerical Research Assistants.

The CRF is part of the Trusts wider Research and Innovation department, which incorporates a Business Team for with costings and contracts, and the Governance Team for Quality and Regulatory processes.

A few of the individuals within the team are detailed below but we are happy to provide you with similar information about any of the team that you are likely to encounter either as a Volunteer or a Sponsor.

NIHR

The NIHR is the nation's largest funder of health and care research and provides the people, facilities and technology that enables research to thrive.

© 2026 NIHR Liverpool Clinical Research Facility