Britain agrees to pay more for drugs

Trump said UK not paying its fair share

- REBECCA ROBBINS ESHE NELSON

An AstraZeneca facility in Macclesfield, England. AstraZeneca in October secured a three-year reprieve from any US pharmaceutical tariffs.

(REUTERS)

The United States and Britain announced a deal on Monday in which Britain would avoid potential tariffs on drug exports by agreeing to spend more on certain medicines covered through its national health service.

In Britain, a public body uses a complex formula to determine whether and how much the government will pay for new drugs, part of a process that results in lower drug prices there compared with the United States.

President Donald Trump and top officials in his administration have complained that wealthy European countries like Britain pay too little for medicines, forcing the United States to pay what they believe is an unfair share of the costs of drugs. American consumers ultimately bear some of those costs when they pay health insurance premiums and taxes.

"For too long, American patients have been forced to subsidise prescription drugs and biologics in other developed countries by paying a significant premium for the same products in ours," Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, said in a news release announcing the deal.

Under the deal with the United States, Britain would pay 25% more for new medicines.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in Britain, known as Nice, decides whether the government should pay for new drugs based on how much benefit a drug provides versus its price. For most drugs, these thresholds have been frozen for more than two decades, despite pressures from drugmakers and some patient advocates for them to be raised. But the threat of US tariffs and drugmakers retreating from Britain have spurred a change.