Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what specific funding has been allocated in 2024–25 for research and development of new antibiotics and alternative therapies to combat antimicrobial resistance; and how this compares to funding allocated over the previous five years.

To date, in 2024/25, the Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), has allocated over £1.2 million for research and development of new antibiotics and alternative therapies. Further research in this area may still be funded this financial year. This compares to a total of £19.5 million of funding allocated to this area of research over the previous five-year period.

The NIHR has also recently announced a further £11 million of funding over five years, for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) research, through a new NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU), focused on healthcare associated infections and AMR research. The new HPRU will launch in April 2025.