10 | MANE LIFE SCIENCES | NOVEMBER 2019
Could UK-US trade push NHS
drug prices up?
Michael Gove has said that the UK won’t make any deals that affect the NHS or drug prices. But with the US eyeing a post-Brexit deal, that resolve is likely to be tested.
The US has outright stated its intention to make other countries pay more for American drugs in future trade deals - and backed that up by including drug prices in deals with South Korea, Mexico and Canada.
According to a former trade negotiator, Donald Trump doesn’t understand what the British PM meant when he said the NHS was ‘not on the table’. Any cuts to NHS funding as part of a drug price regulation scheme would seriously affect patients’ health.
UK and US trade officials have discussed the NHS and the prices it pays for American drugs at at least six meetings - details of which are not publicly available. But a report from a body appointed by the White House makes US objectives in any trade deal quite clear.
The report by the Council of Economic Advisers states that US drug companies will reduce domestic prices in return for the government letting them sell the same drugs to foreign countries at higher undiscounted costs.
Council chair Tomas Philipson is a vocal critic of healthcare systems like the NHS, and of the way the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) considers confidential discounts with manufacturers on new drugs to make them affordable to the NHS.
Even if prices themselves are genuinely off the table, a US deal could still restrict how NICE evaluates new drugs and confidential discounts for the NHS. Or it could take away the rebates paid to the NHS to offset the growth in the British drugs bill.