Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Andrew Selous and Jo Churchill

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Selous]

Q The actual question I want to ask follows on from Ms Churchill’s question. What is your experience of how reasonable the NHS is when dealing with you on the sort of quality and safety issues you referred to in terms of how the Government will respond on pricing if there are specific reasons in terms of plant safety and quality and so on that might justify a slightly increased price? You have obviously been dealing with the Government for a long time. What is your experience of the NHS’s reasonableness in responding to those valid issues you mentioned?

David Watson: Companies will never launch products that are not of the required quality, and the NHS would never pay for them. The issue is more that if there is essentially a procurement-driven approach to medicines, that can and will drive prices down. The long-term impact is much more about organisational investment in the UK, perceiving the UK as a good place to do business. I suspect that in some classes—biosimilar and vaccines are examples—companies will eventually drop out of the market because they do not see the UK as a viable place to do business.

[Jo Churchill]

Q Is there a better way of looking at this? If we had more transparency through the pricing mechanism, but enabled tax efficiencies, R and D and so on, would that be a different way of balancing this for the industry?

David Watson: Yes. That is why this sort of industrial policy becomes really important. Again, that is why the industry semi-globally recognises the value of the Government’s continued willingness to have a voluntary pricing arrangement that not just covers pricing and affordability, but touches on some of the other aspects of how industry operates in the UK. We think that is really important.