Last week ASDA announced that its in-store pharmacies will sell cancer drugs, such as Sutent, Iressa and Nexavar, at a heavily discounted not-for-profit price. Several other supermarkets followed suit. Strangely, this means ASDA and others are in ‘competition’ with the NHS, or at least opposed to the workings of the NHS. This obviously has implications for the pharma industry. A logical assumption is that if patients begin to pay for their own treatment, they will have questions about the cost of the drugs, rather than the NHS footing the bill. Yet how can pharma respond to patients’ concerns given the ban on directly communicating to them about drugs at risk of being promotional?
Pricing has currently only been lowered for the cancer drugs in ASDA, however, the move begs the question ‘why the restriction to just cancer drugs?’ Will patients look to supermarkets and pharmacies to rescue them if drugs for other chronic conditions are unavailable on the NHS? And if so, surely there is no way all drugs can be discounted in such a way? Ultimately, the path we have started down may lead us to a place where patients become more savvy about the drugs they are taking and more questioning of the value of them.
Under this system, patients might no longer berate the government and NICE for issues around access to medicines, but petition the pharma companies directly. However, pharma’s response is limited by regulatory restraints so who will explain to patients the cost of their medicines? Will this be down to the pharmacies alone or will Government play a role or will we see an industry coalition response? Of course this all remains to be seen, but it is something the pharma industry needs to watch carefully to ensure fair representation – not least for the benefit of patients.
Tags: ASDA, drug pricing, drugs pricing, iressa, nexavar, NHS, NICE, pharma, pharmaceuticals, postcode lottery, pricing, sutent