Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information his Department holds on research being undertaken to assist those severely affected by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funds a wide range of research relating to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Major investments include a £2.2 million programme of research with an overall aim to set up a primary care COPD cohort including the full range of disease severity, as a platform for testing novel health service interventions.

The NIHR Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit at Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College London has a £0.8 million research area in COPD, including severe COPD. Details of this research are available on the unit’s website at:

www.rbht.nhs.uk/research/our-research/brus/research-areas/chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease/

Current studies relating to severe COPD delivered by the NIHR Clinical Research Network include:

- a study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of two doses of benralizumab in patients with severe to very severe COPD with a history of COPD exacerbations;

- a study to evaluate the effect of 52 weeks of once daily treatment of orally inhaled tiotropium and olodaterol fixed dose combination compared with tiotropium on COPD exacerbation in patients with severe to very severe COPD; and

- a study to optimise dose selection and evaluate safety after treatment with the Holaira™ Lung Denervation System in patients with moderate to severe COPD.