Innovative medicines should be used more, not less, says UK industry groups

Responding to a report from the UK's National Audit Office that was presented by the Committee of Public Accounts which, among other things, said that huge savings could be made by physicians prescribing generic medicines (Marketletter January 21), the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and the Ethical Medicines Industry Group have gone on the counter-attack, arguing the importance of innovative medicines.

UK lags Europe in use of new medicines

New, innovative medicines are under-used by the National Health Service, not over-prescribed as claimed by the CPA, the ABPI said. In fact, the UK lags behind the rest of Europe in the uptake of modern medicines and - if companies did not provide relevant, ethical information to doctors about them - the problem would be worse still. The assertion that NHS doctors prescribe too many branded medicines is contradicted by the fact that 82% of all prescriptions are written generically and the UK is bottom of the league compared with other, similar countries in prescribing modern medicines, it noted.