Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential support for UK leadership in the adoption of cell and gene therapies of the recommendations of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult’s National Cell and Gene Therapy Vision for the UK, published in March 2022.

The Department recognises that advanced cell and gene therapies will be an important part of the future of healthcare and the life sciences industry. We have been considering the recommendations of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult’s ‘National Cell and Gene Therapy Vision for the UK’, a report published by the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult in March 2022 and the UK Strategic Stem Cell Forum’s latest report ‘A 10-year vision for stem cell transplantation and cellular therapies’ published in July 2022.

As part of this, we have been conducting stakeholder engagement to further understand the challenges raised and whether there is a role for the Department in coordinating activity in this area.