Promoting population health through pharmaceutical policy: The role of the UK voluntary scheme

Pink Sheet Pharma, a go-to source for essential business insights and regulatory intelligence, recently published an article detailing a report written by James Lomas and his colleagues from the University of York, the London School of Economics and Political Science and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The report, titled Promoting population health through pharmaceutical policy: The role of the UK voluntary scheme, discusses the trade-offs involved when deciding how much to pay for branded pharmaceuticals.

Higher payments could stimulate the development of new and innovative drugs, but can also compromise affordability when judged against other uses of health system resources. In the UK a key component of determining how much is paid is the so-called 'Voluntary Scheme', which is currently being renegotiated looking ahead to the next five years. The authors find that, on balance, the UK already pays too much and so paying more in the next five-year period, as proposed by some, would exacerbate this.

You can read the full article here.