AbbVie and Eli Lilly exit UK drug pricing agreement

AbbVie and Eli Lilly have withdrawn from Britain’s voluntary medicines pricing agreement, an industry body said yesterday.

Companies are increasingly arguing that it is no longer possible to justify the UK’s “voluntary scheme” to global boardrooms and investors as repayment rates in 2023 have surged to 26.5 per cent of revenue, the Association of the British Pharma Industry (ABPI) said.

“The current scheme has harmed innovation, with costs spiralling out of control, and the UK falling behind other major countries to be left as a global outlier,” said Laura Steele, President and General Manager, Northern Europe Division, Eli Lilly.

ABPI said it was seeking early talks with the government to set out a new future settlement.

In December, the industry body had said the government raised the amount manufacturers of branded medicines within the voluntary scheme will be required to return to almost 3.3 billion pounds ($4.02 billion) in sales revenue from an earlier amount of 1.8 billion pounds.

The demand from the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and use of new medicines to treat patients have grown faster than the industry’s pre-pandemic projections, which has driven repayment rates far beyond sustainable levels, ABPI added.

The current voluntary scheme, which will end in December, is an agreement between the British government and the pharma industry with roots going back to the foundation of the NHS, ABPI said.

Edits by EP News Bureau