UK call to probe hospital-led Rxing

The UK's antimonopoly watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading, has beenasked to conduct an investigation into the practice whereby manufacturers sell brand-name prescription medicines to UK hospitals at heavily-discounted prices with, it is alleged, the hope of capturing the far more lucrative general practitioner market when the patient is released from hospital.

The request has come from Labor Member of Parliament Peter Bradley, who estimated that this practice, which is known as hospital-led prescribing, could be costing the National Health Service at least L50 million ($72 million) a year, "if not considerably more," reports the Financial Times.

Mr Bradley's request for an OFT investigation, which he made through Secretary of State for Health Alan Milburn, comes in the wake of the fine of L3.2 million ($4.5 million) imposed by the Office on Napp Pharmaceuticals for abuse of a dominant market position (Marketletter April 9) under the 1988 Competition Act. Napp was found to have offered sustained-release morphine to hospitals at discounts of well over 90%, forcing at least one competitor from the market, while supplying the drug to doctors at "excessively high prices."