Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help support research into (a) the treatment of and (b) a cure for motor neurone disease.

The Department delivers research into motor neurone disease (MND) via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR funds a range of research into MND, including investing £8 million into EXPERTS-ALS, which is an early phase clinical research trial for MND, screening for drugs that have the potential to be successful in clinical trials for people with MND.

The NIHR is also funding the Lighthouse II phase three clinical trial, testing the drug Triumeq in patients with MND.

The MND Translational Accelerator, supported by £6 million of Government funding, is connecting the UK Dementia Research Institute, the UK MND Research Institute, and the UK Dementias Platform to speed up the development of treatments for MND and frontotemporal dementia.