Funding for expensive new medicines in the UK over the past 20 years could have been better spent elsewhere in the NHS, according to new research.
A report published in The Lancet on Thursday night said the rollout of such drugs was diverting resources from other types of medicine that could have helped more patients, and that their costs were “compared to many other It is clear that this is taking a huge toll on people's health.
A review of health data from 2000 to 2020 showed that the introduction of new medicines, such as the cancer drug trastuzumab, provided patients with an additional 3.75 million years of complete health at a cost of £75 billion. Ta.
However, the report's authors believe that redirecting these funds could lead to an additional 5 million years of complete health for NHS patients if they were spent on existing services such as early diagnosis of disease. It is concluded that there is a possibility that
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) determines which medicines are good value for money for the NHS. NICE currently sets an upper limit on the cost-effectiveness of recommending treatments at £30,000 per quality-adjusted life year, a measure of the length of life and quality of life afforded by a drug.
The report said this was higher than the NHS's “typical expenditure of £15,000” for the same outcome.
“This allows companies to charge higher prices than the NHS would pay for using existing treatments and services to provide similar health benefits,” the report said. There is.
The new research intensifies the debate over drug prices after the UK government and pharmaceutical industry recently agreed that NICE will maintain cost-effectiveness standards until 2029.
Hussein Nasi, associate professor of health policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and lead author of the report, said: “New medicines can help patients with significant unmet clinical needs.'' It can be a lifeline.” However, innovative medicines are expensive, and the cost does not always justify the benefits they provide.
“After more than a decade of underinvestment in the NHS, it may no longer be justifiable to set NICE thresholds that do not reflect the amount of money the NHS needs to produce good health.”
He added that lowering the threshold would allow the NHS to better negotiate prices for new medicines.
The researchers involved in the study included researchers from the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of York in the UK, and Brown University in the US.
An NHS spokesperson said innovative medicines were “providing improvements in quality of life that would otherwise be unattainable”.
It added that the NHS accounts for 85% of all prescribed medicines and is “an international leader in the use of low-cost biosimilars and generic medicines”, “ensuring affordability across the NHS medicines budget”. Ta.
A NICE spokesperson said: 'Spending money on new medicines creates opportunity costs and displaces other services in the health system. That's why NICE's role is so important. We carefully evaluate treatments and only recommend treatments that provide value for money for taxpayers.”
“Without NICE input, funding decisions would be made locally, leading to inequities in patient access – the ‘postcode lottery’ – and potentially higher costs.”
Victoria Jordan, head of market access policy at the British Pharmaceutical Industry Association, said: We will continue to provide this to patients, their families, caregivers, and wider society. ”
