The National Health Service (NHS) has long had a policy that patients who spend their own money for expensive drugs that aren’t reimbursed by the government automatically become private-pay customers who have to pay the whole bill. But owing to pressure from patients and advocacy groups the UK government has agreed to review the policy.
According to Financial Times, the new generation of cancer drugs typically cost GBP30,000-70,000 a year per patient. The escalating costs to the NHS also prompted the UK government to enforce a five percent average cut in medicines recently.
However, patients across the world are being squeezed between the state agencies increasing scrutiny whether new medicines are both cost- and clinically effective, and drug companies that resist lowering prices. While the governments are concerned over the rising costs of new drugs, the pharma industry contends that unless innovation is rewarded, entire classes of drugs may be abandoned in the laboratory, because of escalating drug development costs.
The NHS has started scrutinizing the drugs which it had earlier refused for refunding on account of non-reimbursement from the state. The National Institute for Clinical Health and Excellence (NICE) has recently launched a pilot scheme with Novartis to advise the company, before the start of late-stage clinical trials, on the information it would require for making its assessment. The pharma industry welcomed this more co-operative and innovative approach of the agency as it helps curtail unnecessary costs involved in drug development.
Michael Rawlins, chairman of NICE, said: “I think the drug companies are really going to have to take a hard look at the value of their products and price them accordingly. If there is a small benefit, they cannot charge premium prices. Traditionally they charged what they thought the market would bear. But we can only afford to pay when the price for innovation is in proportion to what it delivers.”