Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions his Department has had with Novartis during price negotiations on the meningitis B vaccine on risk sharing in the development and implementation of that vaccine.

The meningitis B (MenB) vaccine has already been developed by Novartis. Implementation of the MenB programme is dependent on the vaccine being obtained at a cost effective price as recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

The Department is continuing to negotiate with the manufacturer and the content of these negotiations is confidential. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) completed its purchase of Novartis’s non-influenza vaccine business on 2 March 2015 and therefore, further negotiations are continuing with GSK.