Tough talk from Streeting but he still needs a deal with big pharma

"Wes Streeting gets top marks for fighting talk in his battle with the pharmaceutical companies over the price of prescription medicines. After the health secretary walked away from talks with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) on Friday, he stuck the boot in. The shortsighted pharma industry had rejected a serious and generous offer, he said. It should be more collaborative instead of making unaffordable demands. The government could not allow British patients and taxpayers to be ripped off."

"Yet Streeting surely also knows this standoff cannot be allowed to last indefinitely. Portraying the pharma companies as greedy may be good political theatre and, since we are talking about some of the world's biggest and richest corporations, the sentiment is hardly controversial. But at the end of this process the government still needs a deal. If not, its boasts about making the UK a life sciences superpower will ring hollow."

Wes Streeting walked away from talks with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry after it rejected a generous offer. The government says it cannot allow British patients and taxpayers to be ripped off and demands more collaborative pricing. The standoff cannot last indefinitely because the government still needs a deal to support ambitions for a UK life-sciences superpower. Global pharmaceutical companies have incentives to play hard, driven by US pressure to lower American drug prices to European levels. Companies fear the UK being used as a price reference for the larger US market. Historically the NHS’s single-buyer power and the UK’s research ecosystem secured favourable terms.

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