Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-02-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what arrangements there are for negotiating national prices for rare disease drugs that are not reviewed by NICE.
George Freeman
The prices of branded medicines to the health service, including those for rare disease drugs, are controlled by a voluntary and statutory scheme. The 2014 Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) agreed a fixed level of growth on the vast majority of National Health Service spend on branded medicines with additional expenditure above this level paid for by the pharmaceutical companies. Over the first three years of the 2014 PPRS the UK Health services are expected to get back almost £1.8 billion in PPRS payments.
It is NHS England’s responsibility to develop commissioning policies for treatments provided as part of prescribed specialised services, including some medicines for rare diseases. As part of the development of such policies, NHS England may take into account commercial offers manufacturers may make to the NHS. The Accelerated Access Review is looking with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence at a range of new mechanisms for drug reimbursement adaptive pathways and managed access agreements.
