Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to improve the effectiveness of the early access to medicines scheme.

A support scheme to fund evidence collection in the Early Access to Medicines Scheme (EAMS) by small to medium size pharmaceutical companies will be launched soon.

In addition, the members EAMS task group will continue to collaborate to improve existing processes and create more learning materials for those involved in the scheme.

Since EAMS was launched in 2014, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority has awarded 50 promising innovative medicines designations and 18 positive scientific opinions as part of the scheme.