Prices kept down, says the ABPI
The National Health Service has benefited from medicines prices that, in real terms, are 12 per cent lower than a decade ago. At the same
time, the pharmaceutical industry has maintained its investment in
research and development, according to the Association of the British
Pharmaceutical Industry.
In an opening submission to the Department of Health’s review of
the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS), the ABPI suggests
that the PPRS has been effective for both sides of the agreement. The
NHS is now spending £8.6bn a year on medicines, with the overall
proportion of expenditure remaining at less than 13 per cent of total
NHS cost, in line with previous years and low in comparison with other
major European countries. The pharmaceutical industry is spending nearly £9m
a day in Britain on research and development, almost a quarter of all
industrial R&D in this country and more than any other European country.
The ABPI paper does not specifically call for extension of the PPRS and
sets out its opening stance for forthcoming negotiations. The DoH is
seeking views (PJ, 6 September, p285) on whether the PPRS should be rolled
forward unmodified or whether parts of it should be changed citing, in
particular, areas such as the initial pricing of new medicines, modulation
of pricing across company portfolios, returns on capital, R&D allowances,
sales activities and spending, and the time for which the scheme should
run between reviews. |
