Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 14 April 2026 to Question 127101 on Cancer: Vaccination, (a) (i) how many and (ii) which pharmaceutical companies attended the NHS England webinar in 2025, and (b) (i) how many and (ii) which pharmaceutical companies have since expressed an interest in working with the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad.

The Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad (CVLP) is a platform that is increasing access and speeding up recruitment to clinical trials for personalised cancer vaccines and other immunotherapies for patients who have been diagnosed with cancer. In 2025, the scope of the CVLP was expanded beyond personalised cancer vaccines to also include other immunotherapies. NHS England is responsible for the overall delivery of the CVLP and has contracted the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit to manage the day-to-day delivery of the platform. The platform is designed to be company and clinical trial agnostic so any company can contact the CVLP to explore how the platform can support their research.

NHS England hosted a webinar in 2025, and representatives from 12 pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies attended. Since then, discussions have been held with 15 companies to explore potential support from the CVLP. NHS England cannot release the names of the companies as this is commercially sensitive information.

The list of clinical trials supported by the CVLP that were previously or are currently open to recruitment can be viewed on the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit website.