The chief executive of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has said the UK is \u201cprobably the worst country in Europe\u201d for drug prices, amid a row between the industry and government.<\/p>\n
Dave Ricks said that the UK\u2019s strict pricing regime, allowing it to pay less for drugs than other developed countries, means it would miss out on new drugs being rolled out if it did not raise prices and scrap a rebate scheme.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless that changes I don\u2019t think they will see many new medicines and I don\u2019t think they will see much investment,\u201d the boss of the Mounjaro weight loss drugmaker<\/a> told the Financial Times. \u201cThat\u2019s the UK\u2019s choice, but we react to those choices.\u201d<\/p>\n Ricks\u2019s comments come as big pharmaceutical companies have ditched or paused almost \u00a32bn in planned UK investments<\/a> so far this year, amid a push by Donald Trump for companies to offer comparable medicine prices for Americans as in other countries.<\/p>\n Pharmaceutical companies are pushing for the UK government to restart negotiations over VPAG \u2013 the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access and growth \u2013 which was created to keep NHS<\/a> costs down.<\/p>\n However, the rebate payable by pharmaceutical companies for newer branded drugs rose by almost a quarter this year after NHS spending on such drugs grew much more than expected.<\/p>\n \u201c[We] would like to get rid of the clawback scheme \u2026 which charges us for our own success,\u201d Ricks said.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, the US drugmaker MSD, known as Merck in the US, said it would scrap its \u00a31bn London research centre. Two days later, AstraZeneca decided to halt a planned \u00a3200m expansion<\/a> of its research facilities in Cambridge.<\/p>\n Bristol Myers Squibb has threatened not to sell a new schizophrenia drug in the UK.<\/p>\n Combined with a scrapped project by AstraZeneca in Liverpool and a shelved Eli Lilly lab in London \u2013 part of a \u00a3279m investment package \u2013 four projects worth more than \u00a31.8bn have been pulled or paused this year.<\/p>\n In total, decisions over 13 major projects or companies have damaged the UK\u2019s pharma industry since 2022, also including site closures and stock market delistings.<\/p>\n \u201cThey say: \u2018Well what are you cancelling investments?\u2019\u201d Ricks said. \u201cIt is not an attractive environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, Lilly raised the UK price of the popular weight-loss drug Mounjaro by as much as 170%<\/a> for those who buy it privately.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we had seen is people taking trains from Paris to buy UK Mounjaro,\u201d he said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t make a tonne of sense for us.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. 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We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Earlier this week, Lilly \u2013 which is valued at more than $700bn (\u00a3519bn) on the stock market \u2013 announced it would invest in a $6.5bn manufacturing facility in Houston.<\/p>\n Ricks said the timing of the investment was not linked to President Trump\u2019s 29 September deadline for pharmaceutical companies to make \u201cbinding commitments\u201d to lower the country\u2019s drug prices.<\/p>\n Donald Trump has been calling for US drug prices to be cut to the levels paid in many other developed countries, a move the industry has opposed.<\/p>\n \u201cIs it the justice department [that would\u201d come to litigate us [if a deal is not reached]? Maybe,\u201d Ricks said. \u201cIs it the [Food and Drug Administration] will stop approving drugs? Maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, Trump reiterated his calls for lower drug prices, citing \u201cthe fat drug\u201d that can cost more than $1,000 in the US.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a lot of friends. They are fat,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThey pay $1,300, $1,200 and they go to London and they pay $88 \u2026\u2009We are subsidising the rest of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chief executive of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has said the UK is \u201cprobably the worst country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-157192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}