Billy Kenber Investigations Reporter
Campaigners have welcomed moves to act over price inflation by drug companies but questioned why health officials had failed to act sooner.
The government has tabled a bill aimed at preventing companies from making millions of pounds by buying the marketing rights to old drugs and implementing large price increases.
Labour and 38 Degrees, the campaign group, criticised ministers last night for not moving faster to tackle the problem, which NHS staff first tried to highlight at least two years ago. Diane Abbott, the shadow health secretary, said that publication of the bill was “an admission of failure by the government”.
Ms Abbott said that Theresa May and other ministers had had six years in government to address the issue and that it offered “no reassurance that prices will be brought under control”.
She added: “The latest scheme to limit drugs price inflation on a voluntary basis was only introduced two years ago and clearly hasn’t worked.”
Following an investigation by The Times in June, a petition set up by 38 Degrees was signed by almost 140,000 people. It called on Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, to close the loophole in NHS pricing rules that was being exploited by some drug companies to implement large price rises.
Adam McNicholas, a spokesman for 38 Degrees, said: “It shouldn’t have to take an investigation and a huge petition to expose a practice that was known about for two years. Hundreds of thousands of people have shown that by shining the spotlight on these practices politicians have been forced into action.”
The Times has previously revealed that doctors, academics and NHS staff tried to blow the whistle on huge drug price rises two years ago. NHS officials
in Manchester and Lincolnshire issued separate documents highlighting sharp increases in the price of old drugs after a new drug company acquired them and dropped existing brand names.
Academics and doctors tried to flag up extreme price rises with Depart- ment of Health staff but felt they were fobbed off with the explanation that it could be because of higher manufacturing costs. Emails obtained by this newspaper have previously shown that NHS officials failed to challenge requests for large price increases when they were submitted by drug companies and simply waved them through.
Price rises have led to the NHS encouraging doctors to take patients off at least one drug, the thyroid treatment liothyronine. Its price has risen from 16p to £9.22 per tablet, including from £1.23 per tablet three years ago, and a typical patient takes at least one or two tablets a day.
Many patients claim that there is no alternative to liothyronine because it is used by hypothyroidism sufferers who have not responded well to standard medication.
The drug has a single supplier, AMCo, which has said the product is “incredibly difficult to manufacture” and needs significant investment to en-sure a steady supply. A spokeswoman for AMCo, now known as Concordia International, did not respond to a request for comment on the legislation.
Richard Torbett, of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said that the industry body was assess- ing the bill but it had been “calling on the government to take action on the issue of significant price rises in a small number of those medicines where a competitive market is not working as effectively”.
He said the industry body was examining the legislation “to ensure that the government’s response is proportionate and appropriately targeted”.