New voluntary scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access

Warwick Smith, Director General of the British Generic Manufacturers Association (BGMA) and the British Biosimilars Association (BBA), said: “It is disappointing that the new branded medicines voluntary pricing scheme fails to exclude from its scope products that are already subject to competition and therefore offer significant saving such as branded generics and biosimilars. This means that the true cost of new medicines will be obscured, as will the savings due to competition from branded generics and biosimilars. This lack of transparency is likely to lead to ineffective decision making, increasing costs to the NHS and reducing patient access to medicines.”