NHS to pay 25% more for new drugs in US trade deal

The UK has agreed to pay 25% more for new medicines by 2035 as part of a US-UK drug pricing deal that will cost the Treasury or NHS up to an estimated additional £3bn a year.

- Lisa O'Carroll, Denis Campbell

The transatlantic agreement will also involve the health service in England, which spends £14.4bn a year on innovative therapies, doubling the proportion of GDP it allocates to buying such products from 0.3% to 0.6% over the next decade.

However, ministers have been accused of caving in to a US demand to spend billions of pounds a year extra of taxpayers’ money on drugs provided by the NHS after pressure from Donald Trump.

The Liberal Democrats branded the deal “a Trump shakedown of the NHS”. Helen Morgan, the party’s health spokesperson, said: “Trump demanded these pay rises to put Americans first and our government rolled over. Patients stuck on crammed hospital corridors or unable to get an ambulance won't forget it." NHS leaders backed the government's assessment that the "landmark" agreement would prove worth it because it would lead to tens of thousands of patients receiving groundbreaking new drugs.

But they also warned that the NHS received too little funding to absorb the costs involved and that their budget for providing care, services and treatment should not be raided.

"It is not yet clear how it will be paid for. There is absolutely no slack in current published NHS spending plans for this major commitment and that is a real worry from trust leaders," said Daniel Elkeles, the boss of the hospitals group NHS Providers.