Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will take steps to ensure that for each originator medicine procured by the NHS there are standard and publicly available reporting requirements of (a) the final negotiated net price charged to the NHS, (b) the research and development (R&D) costs attributable to that medicine, (c) any public contributions to R&D costs and (d) that medicines manufacturing costs.

The Department agrees the National Health Service list price for new medicines, which are public. We do not intend to publish negotiated net prices. These are market sensitive and so must be treated as commercial in confidence to allow the NHS to secure the best value arrangements from the manufacturer.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence assesses important, new medicines through a robust evaluation process, which ensures they are priced in a manner that is cost-effective for the value they provide to patients and to the NHS. The costs and source of financial support in developing medicines is not a relevant part of this assessment, and there are no plans to include this. Research and development funding will come from a wide range of sources, both in the United Kingdom and internationally. Funding for research initially directed towards the development of a product that is unsuccessful in clinical trials may contribute to a subsequent breakthrough, so it is not practical to accurately attribute the contribution made by public investment or private investment in bringing each product to market.