Pharmaceutical firms accused of holding health service to ransom over drugs
The failure to agree a price for the lifechanging cystic fibrosis drugs is the latest issue to put the drugs industry, so-called Big Pharma, under the spotlight.
Campaigners have questioned the business models and ethics of the multinational pharmaceutical firms, accusing them of exploiting patients and holding health services to ransom.
Last week, Johnson & Johnson were ordered to pay £ 470 million in just one US state for helping flood the market with opioid painkillers blamed for the deaths of 400,000 people across two decades.
Earlier this year analysis by the Missing Medicines Coalition found that the NHS paid out £458 million to pharmaceutical companies in 201718 for life-saving medicines that were originally developed with public funding.
Missing Medicines said: “Drug companies are more interested in developing drugs that net them huge profits and less on those that save lives.
“By hiking up prices, they put them out of the reach of those most in need.
“Yet, much less attention is paid to developing new antibiotics which command less profit.”
Dr Andrew Hill, of the pharmacology department at Liverpool University, said: “It is atrocious.
“We have had people with hepatitis C having to import essential drugs which were not approved because they were too expensive.
“Others have had to plead for cancer drugs.
“And the cost? Vertex turned down an offer of £500 million over five years from NHS England for Orkambi.
“After the long negotiations ended in failure, Vertex then destroyed considerable amounts of the drug, denying patients access to them.”
Dr Hill says he has spent five years helping patients access drugs from outside the UK.
“I am now helping the parents of children who have cystic fibrosis organise bringing in generic versions of the drugs they need from Argentina.
“Hundreds of UK families have signed up,” he said.
A Vertex spokeswoman said: “Vertex does everything it can to avoid having to withdraw medicines from use. We adhere strictly to regulations on manufacturing and quality.
“These guidelines ensure that all medicines are stored and transported correctly and any medicines which are out of date, and no longer safe are removed.”