To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to support (a) IMPACT, (b) AGAVE and (c) other clinical trials for new Graft-versus-host disease treatments.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) have received funding from the Department to set up a process for manufacturing and supplying mesenchymal stromal cells for the treatment of Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). This process has been set up and the first batches of cells will be available for supply from NHSBT in 2024. These will be issued upon request from hospitals under the Specials program but is not routinely commissioned.

NHSBT funded the IMPACT clinical trials network and subsequently Advancing Clinical Trials Ltd (ACT). The network is currently running two trials in the area of GvHD. NHSBT with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) fund research into transplantation and cellular therapy via the Blood and Transplant Research Unit based in Oxford. While at an early stage, some of the projects leading from this aim to reduce and/or treat GvHD. The NIHR has further supported the delivery of the AGAVE clinical trial via the NIHR infrastructure.