Research and Development Funding

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con) [V]]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this essential and timely debate. He rightly referred to the renewed awareness of how critical properly funded research and development is, and how it saves lives.

There is a need to provide adequate public research funding for brain tumours. We have developed the covid vaccine through proper funding and a reduction in logistics and bulky infrastructure. Brain tumours predate covid and their lethal threat will remain when the vaccine has reduced covid mortality rates.

I am grateful for the opportunity to explain why research and development of brain tumour treatment and diagnosis is so critical. I chair the APPG on brain tumours and we mark the month of March each year by raising awareness and finance for brain tumours and their treatment. In fact, more than 100,000 people have signed a brain tumour research petition calling on the Government to level up research and development funding for brain tumours to similar levels as that for other devastating cancers.

Public funding for research is critical if we are to offer hope to brain tumour sufferers. Brain tumour research supports discovery science and early-stage translational research. The major output from discovery science—also known as basic research—is new knowledge. Few organisations are willing to take on such early-stage, high-risk research. Therefore charities such as Brain Tumour Research play a critical role at the early discovery stage. As well as the governmental support offered by the NIHR, the UK Government can also support discovery science through UK Research and Innovation and the Medical Research Council.

However, only 14% of UK spend on brain tumour research is from the Government. The remaining 86% is from the charity sector. Without new discovery science, the outlook for patients with brain tumours is very bleak. While it is high risk, when discovery science is successful it can lead to significant progress, new ways of thinking and new treatment strategies. It is this investment in discovery science that can, in time, deliver huge improvements in patient survival.

The 2016 House of Commons Petitions Committee report “Funding for research into brain tumours” declared that successive Governments have failed brain tumour patients and their families for decades. Somewhere between the NIHR, UKRI and the MRC lies a funding solution for brain tumour research, but responsibility must not be shuffled and passed on between those departments. If it is, we will continue to fail those diagnosed with this devastating condition.

It is worth pointing out that if early-stage research is not funded, there will be nothing coming out at the other end of the pipeline, and currently we are not allocating available money effectively. Just 25% of the NIHR £40 million, which was announced following the sad passing of Dame Tessa Jowell, has so far been committed to brain tumour research. Brain tumour sufferers just do not have the luxury of time. Even after significant attention has been given to the brain tumour and brain cancer space, it is still the case that brain tumours kill more children and people under 40 than any other cancers.

The potential for significant improvement to survival rates is very real. New methods of treating brain tumours are being developed, but it is a very difficult and tricky pathway. Proper Government focus and targeted funding into brain tumour research will accelerate the discovery of effective treatment. Not only would that give thousands of families real hope and reduce mortality rates, but it will also support UK plc as a world leader in this, as will the other areas of research and development raised during the debate.

It is critical in this month of March and as we go forward to make sure that adequate funding is going into research so that we can find the correct way to treat and cure those who have a brain tumour diagnosis.