UK Industry Views PPRS Negotiations

The renegotiation of the UK Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme nextyear is probably the most significant undertaking the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has faced for many years, ABPI president Peter Read told the Association's half-yearly conference. "We will need all our skills, and we will need a united and determined industry," he said.

1998 also sees the introduction of pPhase III of PRODIGY, the computerized decision-support system for doctors. Dr Read said there had been delays to PRODIGY's phase II, and it was not yet close enough to industry requirements in that it still embodied restrictions on prescribing freedom and the imposition of a further limited list. "The wording and the form of the clinical guidelines is thus crucial," he said.

And National Prescribing Centre Meantime, ABPI medical director Richard Tiner has said that the National Prescribing Centre, set up in May 1996, will have a major influence on what health authorities and individual practices have in their formularies, as more and more practices are developing formularies.