Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding has been provided for research into (a) lobular breast cancer and (b) other forms of breast cancer in each of the last five years.

The Department is proud to invest £1.3 billion per year into health research, with more spent on cancer than any other disease group, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Department officials meet regularly to discuss a wide-range of our investments, including into lobular and other breast cancers, to drive the maximum collective research impact on policy, practice, and individual lives. The NIHR invests in translational and implementation research to drive innovations into policy and practice.

We are proud to have invested £29 million into the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and the Royal Marsden NIHR Biological Research Centre in 2022, supporting their efforts to strengthen research into cancer, including lobular breast cancer. This is complemented by wider investments into breast cancer research including, for example, a £1.3 million project to determine whether an abbreviated form of breast magnetic resonance imaging can detect breast cancers missed by screening through mammography, again including lobular breast cancer. Our support to the NIHR’s Clinical Research Network has enabled the delivery of 10 further lobular breast-cancer related studies.

While the NIHR cannot respond to direct solicitations for funding, instead commissioning on the basis of research excellence, we would welcome more applications from researchers on lobular breast cancer, including from the ICR. The NIHR funds research on cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment and care, which saves lives.