Drugs: Innovation

(asked on 11th May 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the uptake of innovative new medicines in the UK.


Answered by
Steve Brine Portrait
Steve Brine
This question was answered on 21st May 2018

The Life Sciences Industrial Strategy set out a vision of being a world-leader in developing and bringing to market innovative medicines to improve life of United Kingdom patient’s outcomes. It highlighted the importance of evolving and simplifying the access system for new medicines by implementing, and building on, the findings of the Accelerated Access Review.

The response to the Accelerated Access Review, published last year, set out a series of actions the Government and the National Health Service are taking to increase the rate of uptake of innovative products. We have brought together the key Government, NHS and industry partners through the newly formed Accelerated Access Collaborative, which oversees the Accelerated Access Pathway, to streamline regulatory and market access decisions, getting breakthrough products that we believe will be truly transformative to patients more quickly. The response also committed to £86 million of support, including £39 million to improve local adoption and uptake of innovative medical technologies through a greater role for the Academic Health and Science Networks and £6 million to help the NHS to adopt and integrate new technologies into everyday practice through the Pathway Transformation Fund. These build on our existing schemes to encourage quicker patient access such as the Early Access to Medicines Scheme and the Innovation Technology Tariff. Additionally, the Innovation Scorecard tracks the uptake of cost-effective new medicines approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

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