Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to ensure timely access to gene therapies for eligible patients.

The Government supports the National Health Service in research, development and adoption readiness of Advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), including gene therapies, through the Advanced Therapy Treatment Centre network, which is hosted by the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult and set up through funding from the UK Research and Innovation Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence appraises new drugs including ATMPS such as gene therapies. The Department has also invested over £9 million in NHS Blood and Transplants’ Clinical Biotechnology Centre which manufactures recombinant proteins and gene therapy products for use in clinical trials enabling access for patients to the latest therapies.