Expensive drugs should be offered to the NHS free or at discount prices so that patients can be given access to them more quickly, the Government has said.

Ministers are in talks with the drugs industry on how to speed up the approval process for new treatments, The Times has learnt. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which assesses the cost-effectiveness of drugs in England and Wales, can take up to two years to approve a treatment for the NHS but the Department of Health wants to shorten this to six months, and it suggests that the drugs industry will have to make price concessions.

The total drugs bill for the NHS has grown by about 7 per cent a year, reaching nearly £11 billion in 2007, but the Government believes that the NHS should pay only for drugs that benefit patients.

Last year NICE approved a treatment for multiple myeloma called Velcade after the manufacturer suggested such a scheme, the first of its kind in Britain. Under it, patients receive an initial dose of Velcade over a few weeks. If they show a partial or complete response, they continue treatment and the NHS pays as normal, at an average cost of £18,000 per patient. If patients show a minimal or no response, the company repays the cost of treatment to date.

The Department of Health has also asked the drugs industry to consider supplying treatments at a discount price until they are proved to have significant benefits, or to cap costs, with the NHS paying only for a set number of doses. The latter has allowed patients access to the previously restricted Lucentis, a treatment for acute wet age-related macular degeneration.

“We are determined to make more drugs available to patients more quickly,” a source at the Department of Health said. “We want to see more use of pricing schemes such as Velcade and Lucentis offered ... and are in talks with the industry on how to achieve this.”

Richard Barker, director-general of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said that the NHS got a good deal on prices. “We are likely to continue to see companies offering more patient access schemes in the future. [But] this will be done on a case-by-case basis and are likely to be the exception and not the rule.”

Ups and downs of pricing

— Every five years the Department of Health agrees drug priceswith the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. Drugs firms set prices but increases are restricted

— Ministers this year made a 5 per cent reduction in costs through the scheme

— It costs £550 million and more than ten years to bring each new treatment to patients. The ABPI argues that firms need to recoup such costs via the final drug price

Sources: Department of Health; NICE; ABPI

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