Drug makers charge taxpayer ‘twice over’

PHARMACEUTICAL companies are “ripping off ” the public by charging taxpayers twice over and pricing too many drugs out of reach of the NHS, a campaign group claims.

A report by Global Justice Now says the health service is spending £1bn a year on medicines made by companies awarded significant sums of public money.

In other cases, companies which benefited from major research funds have priced drugs so high that the NHS cannot afford them, the report claims.

The study, backed by 20 health and patient organisations, estimates two thirds of spending on upfront drug research and development is funded by the taxpayer.

It says a prostate cancer treatment which was denied to men for years on cost grounds has made pharmaceutical companies vast sums, and costs the NHS £98 a day, although a generic alternative is available for only £11 per day. The drug, Abiraterone, was discovered and developed by the Insitute of Cancer Research, which is primarily publicly funded, the report says.

The report says 10 million people are dying avoidably because they cannot access the right medicines.

Heidi Chow, the report’s author, said: “Big pharmaceutical companies are ripping us off by taking over drugs developed with substantial public money and selling the drugs back to the NHS at extortionate prices. This is nothing short of daylight robbery of taxpayers by some of the most profitable corporations in the world.”

Melanie Kennedy was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in 2013. The NHS refused to fund Kadcyla, a drug that could prolong her life, which was priced at £90,000, forcing Ms Kennedy to desperately fundraise. She said: “High medicine prices have affected me very directly. I felt like I was having to beg for my life, but when you are 40 and have a small child you do whatever you can to try and raise your kids.”