New figures from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, show that the pharmaceutical industry has 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).
The scheme is intended to help make the latest treatments affordable for NHS patients and give UK patients the same level of access to new medicines as other EU countries.
The figures also show that the NHS spend on branded medicines that is covered under the PPRS scheme is essentially flat; from £2,136million in 2014/15 to £2,146 million in 2015/16.
Despite industry funding, new medicines approved as clinically and cost-effective by NICE are not always being adopted and used by the NHS locally.
The pharmaceutical industry has been committed to improving the flow of new medicines into the NHS. Over the five years of the PPRS scheme the industry expects to contribute over £3 billion to the Department of Health.
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 runs for five years and 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.’
