Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the progress in using, and (2) the suitability of, the Innovative Medicines Fund in providing NHS access to gene therapies in England.

The Innovative Medicines Fund (IMF) was launched in June 2022 and builds on the successful Cancer Drugs Fund to support patient access to the most promising new medicines, while further evidence is collected on their use to address clinical uncertainty. £340 million is available through the fund this financial year for the National Health Service to fund early access to the most promising treatments, including gene therapies, while additional data is collected that will inform a future National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) evaluation to decide whether the medicine should be routinely funded. The NICE has recommended two treatments for use through the IMF, both of which are gene therapies, which are:

• etranacogene dezaparvovec, for treating moderately severe or severe haemophilia B; and
• exagamglogene autotemcel, for treating transfusion-dependent beta-thalassaemia in people aged 12 years old and over.