Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the Government has to (a) commission and (b) fund research into further treatments for covid-19.

Through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the Department has funded and continues to commission and fund research into prospective treatments for COVID-19. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has also funded, some jointly with NIHR, a number of projects to identify targets and develop new treatments for people infected with COVID-19 and continues to provide support to research in this area.

The Department’s Antivirals Taskforce and Therapeutics Taskforce have established a horizon scanning function to develop a pipeline of treatments to be considered for United Kingdom research and procurement if proven to be effective.