UK's "PPRS Has Outlived Its Usefulness"

Britain's "pharmaceutical industry is affected by a battery of often inappropriate controls and the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme which, counter to its objectives, regulates overall profitability in a manner which discourages innovation, rewarding quantity rather than quality," according to Vincent Lawton, managing director of Merck Sharp & Dohme, the UK subsidiary of Merck & Co.

Mr Lawton was speaking to journalists at the presentation of an independent academic study commissioned by MS&D, which argues that "public confidence in British regulation is crumbling under the weight of doubts as to its fairness, efficiency and accountability." The study considers regulation in the newly-privatized industries such as telecommunications, gas, electricity and water, as well as airports, television, defence and, of course, pharmaceuticals.

Because of its obsession with quantity rather than quality, said Mr Lawton, "the PPRS has outlived its usefulness." Questioned whether the wish to abolish the PPRS was a minority objective of US majors operating in the UK, he said that he believed there was support for this from various nationalities of companies. If the PPRS does not support R&D investment and the delivery of important new medicines to patients, as he alleged, "it is inappropriate to the regulation of the pharmaceutical industry."