A new report has found that “collaborative vision” could help speed up access to various cutting-edge medicines.
The cross-party report is urging the life science community to work together and “grasp the opportunity to speed up access to cutting-edge medicines in the UK.”
The new APPG report provides a series of recommendations aimed at feeding into the upcoming NICE methods review, as well as suggestions for future research and work in the wider medicines access landscape. It also emphasises that patients, clinicians, regulators and pharmaceutical companies all have an important role to play in shaping and improving the future of access to medicines.
Among the key recommendations are “a fairer representation of patient groups on NICE appraisal committees to ensure that NHS patients gain access to the best possible and most innovative medicines and devices available,” and for the Government “to review the medicines budget with a view to increasing it to ensure patients can continue to receive world leading treatment.”
It also wants the pharmaceutical industry to work harder to ensure it brings the best price to the table at the earliest opportunity and to be more transparent about how it arrives at its list prices.
“Some of the most innovative medicines and medical devices are conceived in the UK but taken to market elsewhere. That has to change,” says Anne Marie Morris MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group.
She continued, “As we continue to push the boundaries of science and bring new ways to treat cancers, chronic, rare and genetic conditions to the NHS, our processes of assessing the value of such therapies must evolve to ensure patients gain access to the best possible treatments.”
Currently less than 50% of orphan medicines are routinely funded in England, Scotland and Wales, compared to over 80% in France and Germany.
