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Pharma industry’s contribution to NHS medicines bill tops £1 billion

pharmafile | March 9, 2016 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Medical Communications, Research and Development ABPI, PPRS, goodwill, pharma industry 

The pharmaceutical industry has now contributed over £1 billion to the Department of Health towards the cost of new medicines as part of the voluntary Pharmaceutical Payment Regulation Scheme (PPRS), according to new figures from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.

The scheme itself is designed to help make the latest treatments affordable for NHS patients and improve the flow of new medicines into the NHS, on par with other EU countries.  New medicines approved as clinically and cost effective by NICE are not always adopted and used on a local level throughout the NHS, despite industry funding, and the scheme is aiming to allow its funding to reach as many as possible.

Over the five years of the PPRS scheme, the industry expects to contribute over £3 billion to the Department of Health. Spending on branded medicines under the scheme remains flat, from £2,136 million in 2014/15 to £2,146 million in 2015/16.

Richard Torbett, executive director commercial at ABPI, said: “Since 2014 our members have paid over £1 billion towards a scheme that they hoped would improve the flow of new medicines into the NHS patients, allowing patients to get access to treatments that are widely available in other European countries.

“This current PPRS scheme offers an important opportunity to ensure more NHS patients can benefit from NICE approved medicines. To ensure we are making the most of this opportunity, we need to sit down with colleagues in the Department of Health and the NHS and establish how to remove barriers, which are currently preventing the NHS from effectively rolling out the use of these new treatments.

“We hope that the Government’s independent Accelerated Access Review – which aims to speed up the use of transformative medicines in the NHS – will provide an opportunity to address some of these issues.”

It was announced at the end of December that the industry would contribute around £550 million in 2016 to the scheme.

Sean Murray

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