Drugs: Innovation

(asked on 11th May 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to put the UK in the top quartile of comparator countries for the speed of adoption of innovative new medicines.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 21st May 2018

The Life Sciences Industrial Strategy (LSIS) set out a vision of being a world-leader in developing and bringing to market innovative medicines to improve patient outcomes and included a strategic ambition for the UK to be in the top quartile of comparator countries for speed of adoption. The Government welcomes the LSIS and supports the ambition to improve uptake. However, simple comparisons of uptake of medicines between different countries with different health systems are very difficult and may not be the most appropriate measure of success. As part of implementing the sector deal, the LSIS Implementation Board will agree a set of success metrics.

To deliver against the ambition in the LSIS, the response to the Accelerated Access Review, published last year, set out a series of actions the Government and the National Health Service are taking to increase the rate of uptake of innovative products. We have brought together the key Government, NHS and industry partners through the newly formed Accelerated Access Collaborative, who will oversee the Accelerated Access Pathway, to streamline regulatory and market access decisions, getting breakthrough products that we believe will be truly transformative to patients more quickly. The response also committed to £86 million of support, including £39 million to improve local adoption and uptake of innovative medical technologies through a greater role for the Academic Health and Science Networks and £6 million to help the NHS to adopt and integrate new technologies into everyday practice, through the Pathway Transformation Fund. These build on our existing schemes to encourage quicker patient access such as Early Access to Medicines Scheme and the Innovation Technology Tariff. Additionally, the Innovation Scorecard tracks the uptake of cost-effective new medicines approved by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence.

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