Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what funding his Department provides for businesses and organisations conducting research into the benefits of natural products in cancer therapy and treatment.

The Government has funding mechanisms in place for research and development relating to cancer treatments.

The Department's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including the use of natural products in cancer treatment. 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 is investing £16 million over five years (to 2017) in 14 Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMCs) across England with joint funding from Cancer Research UK. These centres bring together laboratory and clinical patient-based research to speed up the development of innovative cancer therapies and individualise patient treatment. Researchers at the Leicester ECMC are currently looking at whether curcumin – found in turmeric – can improve drug response in patients with advanced bowel cancer.

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 and is not currently funding any studies of the use of natural products in cancer treatment.

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 UK academics and small and medium enterprises seeking to move their research more quickly from discovery to commercialisation.