ABPI says industry and UK government need to work together on value-based pricing for medicines

In its response to the UK government's consultation on value based pricing (VBP) of medicines, which was launched last December and closes tomorrow, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) highlighted that the key issue to consider is how to ensure the value from new medicines reaches patients and the NHS.

Simon Jose, president of the ABPI and head of GlaxoSmithKline’s UK operations, said: "To improve outcomes for patients and release the value delivered by new medicines we need to work together to co-create a new pricing system that gives commissioners and health care professionals confidence that prescribing a new medicine is a good use of scarce NHS [National Health Service] resources. Following agreement of a value-based price it will be in everyone's interests to ensure that further re-evaluation does not take place locally in the NHS which would slow down the process for the right medicines to reach the right patients."

The ABPI strongly supports the principle for value to reflect the level of innovation and be based on wider issues, especially those aspects that matter most to patients including: reducing the burden of disease; enabling people to return to work; and limiting the amount of time they have to spend in hospital or reducing medicine side effects.