ECoJ Judgment on UK prescribing incentive schemes backs govt, and is major blow to drug industry

In a final ruling from the European Court of Justice yesterday in the case of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) versus the UK regulatory body, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the court ruled that public authorities can offer financial incentives to induce doctors to prescribe cheaper medicinal products.

The case was taken to the ECoJ after the ABPI and the MHRA failed to agree on whether prescribing incentive schemes operated by Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in the UK are unlawful under European law, and called for a clarification of Article 94(1) of the European Union legislation. Under the scheme, prescribing physicians are rewarded for switching patients to cheaper generic medicines, or introducing new patients to copy drugs rather than more expensive brand-named products.

The decision goes against a prior opinion from Advocate General Nilo Jaaskinen earlier this year (The Pharma Letter February 16), in which he said the European Union's code relating to medicinal products for human use precludes a public body forming part of a national public health service, in order to seek to reduce its overall expenditure on medicines, from implementing a scheme which offers financial incentives to medical practices (which may in turn provide a financial benefit to the prescribing doctor) to prescribe a specific named medicine supported by the incentive scheme,