Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of NICE's commercial negotiations with Vertex on NHS contracts.

The Government wants National Health Service patients to benefit from effective treatments, in a way that represents value, and is fair to all parties. The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether medicines should be routinely funded by the NHS, based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NICE develops its recommendations independently based on an assessment of the available evidence, and through engagement with interested parties.

The NICE is currently developing guidance for the NHS on whether the disease modifying treatments Symkevi, Orkambi, and Kaftrio, which contains elexacaftor, tezacaftor and ivacaftor, should be routinely funded by the NHS. Following a recent consultation on its draft recommendations, the NICE has now reached a point in the process where it can pause guidance development to allow further commercial negotiations between NHS England and the company. An update on the anticipated date for the publication of final guidance will be provided by the NICE once timelines are confirmed.

NHS England has been able to reach commercial agreements with many companies for medicines being evaluated by the NICE, that have enabled the NICE to recommend them for NHS use.