Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what support his Department is giving to King's College London to work on developing the MAP vaccine for Crohn's disease from animal testing to human trials.

The Department's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is not currently funding any Crohn’s vaccine development work at King’s College London.

The Government has funding mechanisms in place for research and development relating to innovative medicines.

The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including Crohn’s disease and vaccines. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality.

The NIHR manages the Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation programme, which bridges the gap between preclinical studies and evidence of clinical efficacy. The aim is to secure the progress of new technologies and interventions through their early clinical trials and onto larger, later clinical trials. The programme is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the NIHR.

Other sources of funding include the Biomedical Catalyst, which is a funding programme jointly operated by the MRC and Innovate UK. The programme provides responsive and effective support for the best translational life science opportunities arising. Grants are available to United Kingdom academics and small and medium enterprises seeking to move their research more quickly from discovery to commercialisation.