PPRS - A Dreadful Deal!

The Ethical Medicines Industry Group (EMIG) has slammed the new PPRS plan, calling it a ‘dreadful deal’ for its members.The UK research-based trade association represents small and medium-sized (SME) pharma and biotech firms, and it says the new PPRS is in danger of driving away investment from the UK.EMIG chairman Leslie Galloway told Pharmafile: “The more you get into the detail, the more concerned I am about this dreadful deal.”One of his biggest bugbears is the quarterly rebate which all companies earning more than £5 million from the NHS will pay to the Department of Health under the new agreement, which was negotiated by the ABPI with the government.This has been introduced with the intention of keeping the NHS’ drugs bill down, but ABPI chief executive Stephen Whitehead has already spoken of his disappointment that the government would not fund exemptions for relatively small companies earning between £5 million and £25 million from the NHS.“To restore that rebate to those companies would cost the NHS £7.3 million,” suggests Galloway. “That is negligible compared to the damage this will do.”The ‘real bite’ is the exemption threshold. “If you make under £5 million there is no rebate,” says Galloway. “But if you make five million and one pounds you pay £187,000, because it is based on the five million and one pounds figure and not on the one pound over £5 million.”The rebate is ‘unfair and inappropriate’, he goes on. “You need t...
Source: PharmaGossip - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs