Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will provide an update into his Department's research efforts into Motor Neurone Disease.

Government responsibility for delivering motor neurone disease (MND) research is shared between the Department of Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), primarily through the Medical Research Council for MND.

The Government is investing in MND research across a range of areas, including an £8 million investment via the NIHR into the EXPERTS-ALS, a pre-clinical study which is designed to accelerate the identification and testing of the most promising treatment candidates for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common form of MND.

The MND Translational Accelerator, supported by £6 million of Government funding, is connecting the UK Dementia Research Institute, the UK MND Research Institute, and Dementias Platform UK. Twelve projects have been funded through the Accelerator, and all are aimed at speeding up the development of treatments for MND.

In August 2025, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency approved Tofersen to treat SOD1-ALS, a rare form of MND. Research into Tofersen was supported by NIHR’s Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre, and all three trial phases were delivered by the NIHR’s Research Delivery Network, demonstrating tangible impact of NIHR funded research into MND.

The NIHR and UKRI continue to welcome funding applications for research into MND. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.