Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the covid-19 vaccines approval process and whether lessons from that process can be applied to support the development and approval of other innovative medicines and treatments.

The rapid approval and delivery of clinical trials in the United Kingdom to respond to COVID-19 has made a leading contribution to the international vaccine and therapeutics effort. In March the Government set out its vision for the future of clinical research delivery to create a patient-centred, pro-innovation and digitally-enabled research environment. Implementation plans and strategies setting out how the Government and devolved administrations will begin to deliver the vision during 2021 to 2022 will be published shortly.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) launched the Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway (ILAP) at the start of 2021, to reduce the time to market for innovative medicines. The ILAP combines the MHRA’s independence and high standards of quality, safety and efficacy, with improved efficiency and flexibility. It provides a single integrated platform between the MHRA, partners and the medicine developer, to ensure that patients receive the highest quality medicines and treatments as soon as they become available.