UK's NICE given broader responsibility on medicine costs/benefits; DoH continues PPRS consultation

The UK Department of Health yesterday (June 20) announced further steps in what it says is “its commitment to making sure patients get the medicines they need whilst ensuring what the National Health Service pays for medicines is fair and better value for taxpayers.”

As a first step, the Department has given the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) a new blueprint to look at the benefits drugs bring to patients and wider society. The NICE will be responsible for assessing new medicines as part of value-based pricing, linking the price of a drug to its value, which will be introduced in January 2014. The agency will work with patient groups, the NHS and the drugs industry to decide exactly how to value new drugs. This will be based on the best available evidence and will be as transparent as possible.

Secondly, the DoH has launched a consultation to strengthen the statutory pharmaceutical pricing scheme, which covers the prices the NHS pays for branded drugs not covered by the voluntary Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS). The consultation is seeking views on a price cut on drug prices of between 10% and 20% to ensure the NHS is getting good value for money. The NHS currently spends around £13 billion ($20.38 billion) a year.