New UK drug pricing deal promises faster medicines access

The UK government has reached a new five-year medicines pricing deal with the pharma industry to replace the almost 60-year-old Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS). The new Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access has been agreed in principle with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) but still needs the details to be teased out before it can be fully agreed and come into effect from 1 January 2019, after the current PPRS expires. The headline news is that it introduces an annual 2% cap on the growth of branded medicines sales to the NHS, with any overspend repaid by pharma companies as a rebate based on their net sales. That should trim around £930 million off the NHS drugs bill in 2019, according to the heads of agreement document.
In return, the industry should get “more and faster NICE appraisals for new medicines” – perhaps six months sooner than at present – as well as earlier engagement to ensure clinicians and the NHS infrastructure are ready to use them. In principle, that addresses a perennial complaint of pharma executives that the UK’s uptake of new drugs is slower than other European countries.