Pfizer offers to pay for UK Lyrica switches
pharmafile | August 13, 2015 | News story | | Lyrica, NHS England, Pfizer, generics, neuropathic pain, patents, pregabalin
Pfizer is to pay the administrative costs of GPs to switch patients to Lyrica from generic versions of pregabalin, as it looks to stave off UK competition from generic manufacturers.
The pharma giant is fighting to maintain dominance in the neuropathic pain market – the one indication where Pfizer still owns the patent for Lyrica. Its patents for epilepsy (for adults with partial seizures with or without secondary generalisation) and generalised anxiety have expired, and GPs are free to prescribe generic versions of the drug for these conditions.
Pfizer is battling with NHS England – and has gone all the way to the High Court for a hearing – to insist that NHS England does more to encourage GPs to continue to prescribe Lyrica for neuropathic pain, and dissuade GPs from prescribing the generic form, off-label.
As its legal action involving NHS England and generic manufacturers continues, Pfizer has offered to refund practices for the cost of switching prescriptions of generic pregabalin over to Lyrica. It has offered to reimburse costs across all four health administrations in UK.
GP trade magazine Pulse reports that in a letter to NHS chiefs, the company said it would pay ‘reasonable and proportionate’ costs to practices, so the switchover can ‘be progressed quickly’. Pfizer says it plans to recoup the costs from manufacturers of generic pregabalin.
An interim High Court ruling in March ordered NHS England and its equivalent bodies to write to NHS prescribers advising they must specify ‘Lyrica’ when issuing new prescriptions for neuropathic pain.
In its the High Court submission, Pfizer called for changes to GP software to ensure only branded pregabalin is prescribed for neuropathic pain. The US firm says that NHS England should update primary care systems with ‘high severity’ warnings on GPs computer systems, and issue further guidance for pharmacists and hospitals to ensure that its patent for the drug Lyrica is respected by prescribers.
Pfizer argues that current measures it pressured NHS England into to putting in place have only had a ‘limited effect’. The document says: “While the NHS guidance has been welcomed, the unfortunate truth is that it is not fully effective.
“A top 20 nationwide pharmacy chain has informed [Pfizer] that, based on the Patient Care Records maintained in their branches, prescriptions for Lyrica by brand had gone up to about 21% by 21 April and to about 28% by 28 May 2015. These data demonstrate that the NHS guidance, and equivalent in Wales and Northern Ireland, is only now beginning to have some limited effect on prescribers.”
The legal case is the first of its kind in the UK, and if Pfizer is successful it could encourage other drug companies will launch ‘second patent’ bids for existing off-patent drugs in the UK.
Lilian Anekwe
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