Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information on the costs of (a) research and development, (b) marketing and (c) distribution his Department requires when negotiating the price of medicines.

The National Health Service list prices of licensed branded medicines are controlled by either the voluntary 2014 Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) or the statutory scheme. Companies in the PPRS are not required to routinely provide such information when launching new medicines. However, the Department may request actual and forecast information relating to the United Kingdom market under these cost headings if it is deemed necessary to reach an agreement on price. Under the statutory scheme, the Secretary of State may have regard to, among other things, the cost of research into, and development of, the product for which a price is requested.

All pharmaceutical companies are required to provide actual and forecast information for these cost headings if requesting a price increase on an existing medicine.

The Department does not control the selling price of generic medicines; instead it relies on competition and the retained margin incentive for dispensing contractors to drive down prices, therefore this information is not required from manufacturers before placing a generic product on the market.