Generic medicines

Actavis accused of overcharging NHS for hydrocortisone tablets

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has accused pharmaceutical company Actavis UK of breaking competition law by charging the NHS excessive prices for hydrocortisone tablets. Actavis UK (formerly Auden Mckenzie) increased the price of 10mg hydrocortisone tablets by over 12,000% compare…

Pfizer and Flynn fined £90m for excessive pricing of epilepsy drug

The UK competition watchdog has fined two pharmaceutical companies £90m for charging what it has called excessive and unfair prices in the UK for phenytoin capsules. …

Like the United States, the UK has a drug price gouging problem and it’s getting worse

I read with interest John Rother’s letter on drug price gouging in the United States. Unfortunately this behaviour is also prevalent in the UK. A number of medicines have been available as proprietary products, discontinued by the manufacturer and almost immediately replaced by an identi…

UK government to tackle high drug prices

The UK government will be able to require pharmaceutical companies to reduce the price of a generic medicine or to bring in other controls on a company’s unbranded medicine under a proposed bill to control drug prices.…

Benchmarking will help hospital trusts meet Carter efficiency challenge

Member of the RPS English Pharmacy Board Aamer Safdar makes the case for using benchmarking to help realise savings in line with the Carter review.…

Four NHS geographic committees to be set up to appraise drugs across England

Four regional medicines optimisation committees will be set up across England to reduce the duplication of drug evaluation in the NHS. …

Monopoly generic pricing in secondary care

A story published in The Times on 3 June 2016 (Extortionate’ prices add £260m to NHS drug bill’), subsequently followed up by the BBC, has put the spotlight on monopoly generic drug pricing. Billy Kenber, who wrote the article, indicated that the data upon whic…

Drug switching could save US health system billions

Drug classes with the highest excess expenditure in the United States are statins, atypical antipsychotics and proton pump inhibitors, study finds.…

Government to claw back £48m from pharmacy contractors in England on top of cuts

The government is clawing back £48m from community pharmacy contractors in England over the next four months, with the possibility of more cuts after October 2016, national negotiators have revealed.…

Resistance to antimalarial atovaquone does not spread

Atovaquone could be used more widely to treat malaria since resistance does not spread to subsequent generations of the malaria parasite.…