Caving to Trump and pharma on drug prices will cost lives, not save them

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Increasing NHS drug costs would cause thousands of preventable deaths, widen health inequalities and harm the British economy – whilst doing nothing to encourage genuine life sciences investment, argues health economist Karl Claxton.

The UK government is currently contemplating how much more it should be paying for new drugs in order to avoid painful tariffs imposed by the Trump administration – and ostensibly to encourage inward investment in life sciences and ensure the UK pays its fair share of the costs of pharmaceutical innovation.

This summer, UK ministers rejected a proposal by the pharmaceutical industry to effectively increase costs by £2.5 billion. A proposal reported on by Politico last month would have seen the quality-adjusted life year (QALY) measure that NICE uses to evaluate the cost-efficiency of new medications increase by 25%. That proposal stalled out for not going far enough to increase spend.

As another, likely more costly, deal is now being negotiated, it’s worth evaluating just how much is at stake for the NHS – and for the health of British citizens.