Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress has been made on the development of treatments for motor neurone disease.

Treatment for motor neurone disease (MND) can include a range of approaches such as counselling and emotional support, respiratory care, speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, respiratory secretion management, neurorehabilitation, physiotherapy and palliative care. Whilst drugs can be used for symptom management, riluzole is the only pharmacological drug licensed in the United Kingdom to slow the progression of MND.

Through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), we are investing over £1 billion a year in health research. In 2016-17, the NIHR invested £4.58 million to fund and support a range of research studies and infrastructure with a focus on MND and closely-related conditions. Current research falls in to three broad categories:

- Drugs that will slow down or cure MND;

- Improving care, symptom management and quality of life for people with MND; and

- Work to better categorise patients with MND so that treatments can be personalised.

Examples of drug research include the first gene therapy studies for a type of MND that runs in families, and a multicentre academic European Union and MND Association funded study of interleukin-2 to assess whether it can slow progression by reducing the immune system response.

The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including 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.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority has also advised that it is aware of five active clinical trials into treatments for MND.