Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to ensure that (a) negotiations between Roche pharmaceuticals and NHS England on access to ocrelizumab for people with early primary progressive MS proceed immediately and (b) a new agreement is reached between those two parties.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is currently developing technology appraisal guidance on the use of ocrelizumab for the treatment of primary progressive multiple sclerosis. NHS England is in discussions with Roche, the manufacturer of ocrelizumab, to seek to agree a commercial agreement that might enable NICE to recommend use of the drug. Those discussions are rightly for NHS England and Roche and it would not be appropriate for Ministers to intervene.