UK launches AI sandbox to improve medicine safety and drug development

The UK will launch an AI sandbox to test how AI can improve medicine safety and support drug development. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency will establish the AI sandbox with support from the government’s Regulatory Innovation Office.

The programme will examine how AI tools could help assess medicine safety, predict potential risks and identify effects that existing approaches may overlook. According to the government, adverse drug reactions result in around 250,000 hospital admissions each year in the UK and cost the NHS more than £2 billion annually.

The AI sandbox will provide a controlled testing environment where companies and researchers can work alongside regulators to explore how AI tools could better predict the behaviour of medicines in the body. Areas of interest include how medicines are absorbed and processed, and whether they may cause harm.

The programme will also explore how clinical data can improve understanding of medicine performance across different population groups, including children, older adults and people from diverse backgrounds. The MHRA will use the work to assess the reliability of AI tools and whether they can support decisions on the safety of new medicines.

Up to five AI-driven approaches will be tested in the AI sandbox’s first phase. The MHRA will begin working with industry and academic partners from summer 2026 to shape how the sandbox operates.

The initiative forms part of broader UK efforts to modernise medicines development through advanced modelling, synthetic data and alternatives to animal testing. The government said the AI sandbox also supports its AI for Science Mission One and the 10 Year Health Plan goal of building a more AI-enabled healthcare system.

Why does it matter?

AI is increasingly being explored as a tool for improving pharmaceutical research, medicine safety monitoring and regulatory decision-making. By analysing large volumes of clinical and biological data, AI systems may help identify risks earlier, improve predictions about how medicines behave and support the development of more effective treatments.

The sandbox approach also reflects a growing trend among regulators to create controlled environments where emerging technologies can be tested before wider deployment. Such initiatives can help regulators better understand the benefits and limitations of AI while supporting innovation in highly regulated sectors such as healthcare.

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