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 improve equity of access to CAR-T therapy; and what assessment he has made of the potential merits of making it available as a first-line treatment for eligible leukaemia patients.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the body responsible for developing independent, evidence-based guidance for the National Health Service on whether licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the NHS, based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NICE only makes recommendations on medicines within their licensed indications through its technology appraisals programme. There are currently no CAR-T therapies licensed as first-line treatments for leukaemia, and the NICE has therefore not made recommendations on their use at that stage in the treatment pathway.

The NICE has evaluated and recommended several CAR-T therapies for blood cancers, including leukaemia, within their licensed indications. CAR-T therapy is available in line with the NICE’s recommendations.