Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if the Government will publish a timeline for when the Health Services Medical Supplies (Costs) Act 2017 will be implemented in England; and what progress has been made on that implementation.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is an independent non-ministerial department. Whilse the Department provides input and evidence for CMA cases it is not involved in the investigation itself nor can it influence the outcome or timetable. The CMA has provisionally found that Concordia abused its dominant position to overcharge the National Health Service by millions for liothyronine and we are awaiting their final decision. A separate investigation by the Department would be a duplication of those efforts. Where companies have breached competition law, the Department will seek damages and invest that money back into the NHS.

In this context it is worth noting that all United Kingdom marketing authorisation holders of liothyronine are obliged to ensure that the product complies with the minimum standard as specified in the updated British Pharmacopoeia monograph for liothyronine tablets. Liothyronine on the market in other European Union Member States may not comply with the updated British Pharmacopoeia monograph and therefore would not be considered therapeutically equivalent.

The Health Services Medical Supplies (Costs) Act 2017 amended the NHS Act 2006 in a number of areas and gave the Secretary of State powers to:

- Make a statutory scheme for branded medicines requiring companies to pay a percentage of their sales. The Branded Health Service Medicines (Costs) Regulations 2018 entered into force on 1 April 2018;

- Make regulations to require the supply chain for health service products to provide information. The Health Service Products (Provision and Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2018 entered into force on 1 July 2018;

- Reimburse community pharmacies differently or not at all for special medicinal products. We are developing proposals for this which will be subject to consultation with the relevant stakeholders; and

- Limit the price of a medicine made or supplied by companies in the voluntary scheme, currently the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, when that medicines is not covered by that scheme. We are developing proposals for using those powers to address unwarranted prices of unbranded generic medicines which will be subject to consultation with the relevant stakeholders.