Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential for gene therapy technologies to help tackle health inequalities in (a) communities affected by specific hereditary conditions and (b) the general population.

Gene therapies have the potential to treat hereditary and non-hereditary diseases that are a cause of long-term health conditions and poor quality of life. The Government supports research, development and adoption readiness of advanced therapy medicinal products, including gene therapies, through the Advanced Therapy Treatment Centre network, which is hosted by the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. The Department has also invested over £9 million in NHS Blood and Transplants’ Clinical Biotechnology Centre which manufactures recombinant proteins and gene therapy products for use in clinical trials enabling access for patients to the latest therapies.