UK Govt Must "Reject National Formulary" For Drugs

The introduction of a National Formulary in the UK would be a dramatic extension of the Limited List concept that has already attracted widespread opposition from doctors, pharmacists, industry and patients, claims the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry in a new report entitled Your Medicine - Whose Choice? The report is a response to a House of Commons Select Committee recommendation for the establishment of a National Health Service Prescribing List (or National Formulary; Marketletter February 28).

In a foreword to the report, the ABPI's new director general, Trevor Jones, says the move "sent shock waves through the UK's research-based pharmaceutical industry earlier this year," and recalled that the then Health Minister, Brian Mawhinney, reintroduced the idea of generic substitution during a Commons enquiry. But, he points out, "for whatever reasons, the government of the day decided not to pursue the recommendation and embarked upon alternative cost containment initiatives."

The author of the report, Bernard Hardisty, says that a national compilation of medicines permitted for use on the NHS could override currently established local general practitioner and hospital formularies, and the main criteria for allowing a medicine to remain available for NHS patients would be comparative price. More expensive medicines not included in the proposed National Formulary, he points out, would presumably have to be paid for in full by the patient, providing that the manufacturers kept them on the market in the UK.