Eli Lilly, AbbVie Exit Drug Pricing Agreement in UK

According to an industry body, pharmaceutical companies AbbVie and Eli Lilly had withdrawn from Britain’s voluntary medicines pricing agreement.

According to a statement released by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), businesses are increasingly arguing that it is no longer possible to justify the UK’s “voluntary scheme” to global boardrooms and investors as repayment rates rise to 26.5% of revenue in 2023.

According to Laura Steele, president and general manager for Eli Lilly’s Northern Europe division, the current scheme has hindered innovation by causing costs to spiral out of control and leaving the UK as a global outlier. The ABPI stated that it wanted to talk with the government right away about a new deal for the future.

The industry body stated in December that the government increased the amount of sales revenue that manufacturers of branded medicines will be required to return under the voluntary scheme to almost 3.3 billion pounds ($4.02 billion), up from 1.8 billion pounds earlier.

The use of new medicines to treat patients and the demand from the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) have grown faster than the industry anticipated before the pandemic, which has driven repayment rates far beyond sustainable levels, according to ABPI.

According to the ABPI, the current voluntary program, which will end in December, is an agreement between the pharmaceutical industry and the British government that has its roots in the NHS.