Grammar_review

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/31fc6c8a-3cb5-11dd-b958-0000779fd2ac.html

Drug price deal to cut company profits

- New rules on medicine pricing to be unveiled by the government
- will herald fresh cuts in income for the pharmaceutical industry in Britain.
- the health secretary, will announce the outline of an agreement to replace the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation System (PPRS) that was cancelled late last year.
- The proposals are expected to include average price cuts of about 5 per cent for existing medicines, sweetened by assurances of more rapid and widespread uptake
- the National Health Service = NHS

- Branded medicines which are still sold at premium prices by the pharmaceutical companies

- which have since gone off-patent,

- may be excluded from the new PPRS and subjected to more aggressive price competition - - rival generic products.

- The changes follow Treasury pressure on the Department of Health to cut spending as part of government

- While the UK leaves drug companies free to set the prices
- the PPRS regulates the overall profits they can make.

- The NHS has discretion over whether to purchase them after assessing their efficacy and cost-effectiveness.

- The government’s decision to seek changes to the pricing regime sparked anger from the pharmaceutical industry,

- They drew support from a report by the Office of Fair Trading last year that argued for “value-based pricing”,

- The new deal is expected to last for several years.
- Ideas based on “value-based pricing” and “risk-sharing”,
- those patients who do not show improvement, have not yet been tested on any significant scale.