Demand for £20bn a year extra spending on NHS Chris Smyth, Health Editor The pharmaceutical industry has issued an unprecedented warning that the world’s biggest drug companies will abandon Britain unless the NHS receives an extra £20 billion a year. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) says that increased rationing of treatments is a sign that the NHS is falling out of the top tier of world health systems, and that patients and companies will suffer as a result. Lisa Anson, who takes over as association president today, told The Times that the financial squeeze on the NHS threatened the whole of Britain’s £30 billion life sciences sector as firms would reconsider working in the UK. Without higher health spending, companies would delay launching medicines in Britain as they were unlikely to be approved, she said.… Want to read more? Register with a few details to continue reading this article. Already a subscriber?
The global pharmaceutical industry will abandon the UK unless the country's National Health Service (The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) receives an extra £20bn ($26bn), warned a major industry trade group. NHS (ABPI) argued that the increased rationing of treatments is a sign that the The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry is falling in the ranks of the world's major health systems, leaving patients and drug companies to suffer. UK health spending, presently 9.9% of GDP, should rise to 11.3%, according to the ABPI's published election campaign requests. The demands come as GSK, the UK's biggest drugs company, announced a £2bn rise in first-quarter profits on revenues of £7.4bn.