Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure adequate manufacturing capabilities for new (a) vaccines and (b) drugs in a pandemic.

An established clinical countermeasures programme is a core component of our pandemic preparedness and response capability, including vaccines and therapeutics. The UK Biological Security Strategy, published in June 2023, reaffirms our ambition to scale up discovery, development, and manufacturing of therapeutics and vaccines within 100 days.

In the Autumn Statement 2023, the Chancellor announced £520 million for Life Sciences manufacturing to build resilience for future health emergencies and capitalise on the United Kingdom’s world-leading research and development. This follows previous investment through the Biomanufacturing Fund, to incentivise the manufacture of vaccines and therapeutics, to improve the UK’s health resilience to future pandemics.

In September 2023, the UK Health Security Agency agreed a deal for millions of life-saving vaccines to be produced, with end-to-end manufacturing in the UK, if a future influenza pandemic is ever declared. The advance purchase agreement means healthcare company CSL Seqirus will be on standby to produce over 100 million pandemic influenza vaccines from their manufacturing plant in Liverpool.

In December 2022, the Government and Moderna entered a strategic partnership to set up mRNA research, development, and manufacturing facilities in the UK. Under the partnership, Moderna will build a new Innovation and Technology Centre in the UK, with the capacity to produce up to 250 million vaccines per year, in the event of a pandemic.