Drug companies cut prices in order to be available on NHS

Pharmaceuticals are cutting the price of their cancer drugs in order to not have them banned from the NHS, as a watchdog found them not to be expensive.

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) is reviewing drugs which were being paid for by the £340m Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF), which will be closed by the government, for not being cost-effective. If drugs are cost effective they will be available for general use and paid for by the NHS.

In response to the review and the closure of the fund, drug companies have slashed their prices. Crizotinib, made under the brand name Xalkori by Pfizer, and which is used to treat lung cancer, cut its list price of £51,000 per patient per course twice in negotiations.

Everolimus, made by Novartis as Afinitor, used to treat breast cancer, and ibrutinib, made by Janssen as Imbruvica to treat mantle cell lymphoma, are to be dropped as they are not cost-effective.

Prices have been slashed for bosutinib used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia, pemetrexed for lung cancer and cabazitaxel for prostate cancer.

NICE chief executive Sir Andrew Dillon told the Guardian: “Companies are finding it possible to revise their value proposition … We need them to change their approach to pricing cancer products in order for us to make a significant change to the rate at which we are able to support these drugs compared to the position before the CDF was introduced.”

The CDF, a pot of money for expensive medicines not considered effective or assessed by NICE, was closed in March after it overspent heavily. The new fund will be relaunched and controlled by NICE. As of March there were 41 drug treatments in the fund.

Shares in Pfizer were up 0.18% to 1,915 cents at close and shares in Novartis were down 0.45% to 78.20 cents at 1336 CEST.