Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps his Department has taken to support research into cancer immune therapies.

Medical Research Council, as part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funds research relevant to cancer immune therapies as part of its wider cancer portfolio. Development of cancer vaccines and immune therapies, including immune-oncology work into Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR-T) approaches and immunotherapies, is funded through MRC’s research boards, panels and Unit and Institutes.

For example, research into cancer immune therapies have been supported through MRC’s Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme such as research taking place at Great Ormond Street Hospital which is aiming to use novel base editing techniques to develop new CAR-T approaches to treat Leukemia in Children. In addition, research at Queen Mary, University of London is looking at Tumour-targeting oncolytic viruses, a new class of therapeutic that has shown immense promise in clinical trials for a number of different cancers and provide a promising platform for development of curative therapies for pancreatic cancer.

MRC has also supported research through its Units including research at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit which is focusing on new drugs including immune-oncology drugs, and artificial intelligence technologies to improve cancer treatments. There is also research at the MRC Toxicology Unit looking at using new technologies to better understand the immune system and to investigate how and why toxicity develops. This knowledge will help to design interventions that make immune therapies safer and more widely available.

MRC always welcomes high quality applications for support into any aspect of human health and these are judged in open competition with other demands on funding. Awards are made according to their scientific quality and importance to human health.