UK set to save record £300 million on the NHS highest drug spend

27 November 2018

The NHS is set to save a record £300 million ($384 million) after negotiating deals with five manufacturers on low cost versions of the health service’s most costly drug, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens announced today.

The huge anticipated saving, the biggest in NHS history from a single drug negotiation, was unlocked by the introduction of ‘biosimilar’ versions of adalimumab, marketed as Humira by AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV), are double previous estimates – and would pay for 11,700 more community nurses or 19,800 more breast cancer treatments for patients.

The deal should mean hospitals pay around a quarter of the more than £400 million each year they currently spend on adalimumab, which is used to treat severe hospital treated conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and psoriasis.

This article is accessible to registered users, to continue reading please register for free. A free trial will give you access to exclusive features, interviews, round-ups and commentary from the sharpest minds in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology space for a week. If you are already a registered user please login. If your trial has come to an end, you can subscribe here.

Try before you buy

Free

7 day trial access

Take a Free Trial

All the news that moves the needle in pharma and biotech
Exclusive features, podcasts, interviews, data analyses and commentary from our global network of life sciences reporters.
Receive The Pharma Letter daily news bulletin, free forever.

Become a subscriber

£820

Or £77 per month

Subscribe Now

Unfettered access to industry-leading news, commentary and analysis in pharma and biotech.
Updates from clinical trials, conferences, M&A, licensing, financing, regulation, patents & legal, executive appointments, commercial strategy and financial results.
Daily roundup of key events in pharma and biotech.
Monthly in-depth briefings on Boardroom appointments and M&A news.
Choose from a cost-effective annual package or a flexible monthly subscription

The Pharma Letter is an extremely useful and valuable Life Sciences service that brings together a daily update on performance people and products. It’s part of the key information for keeping me informed

Chairman, Sanofi Aventis UK