Last month, the NHS launched a new scheme to raise the spending cap on drugs and manage its expenditure better. However, the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access has come under criticism, with one expert saying it could end up costing pharmaceutical companies more.

Dr Nicholas Jones, patent attorney specialising in life sciences and the pharmaceutical industry, told Pharma Phorum that the sector could be hit hard by the new initiative.

Replacing the Pharmaceutical Pricing Regulation Scheme, the latest voluntary programme, launched in November last year, was designed to “to provide stability and predictability for all parties in terms of the UK’s branded medicines expenditure and the medicines pricing and access environment for the period 2019 to 2023”.

As part of the scheme, a two per cent cap on growth in the NHS’ annual budget for branded medicines has been introduced.

However, Dr Jones said this could have a knock-on effect for pharmaceutical businesses, stating: “The cap on the NHS’ annual budget for branded medicines could also end up costing the maters of more complex drugs and treatments, such as biologics, more.”

He noted that as these have considerable benefits for patients, including better effectiveness and fewer side effects, they “involve the invention of complex molecules and tend to be costlier to make”.

The cap, he argued, may have been set too low, and the NHS might need to spend much more than its £16 billion budget on drugs and treatments each year, to provide better medications for patients.

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