The House of Lords Public Services Committee has published its report concluding its medicines security inquiry. They argued that it is vital that the UK has strong, resilient medicine supply chains and emphasised the need for clear, proactive leadership.
The report lists better information sharing, closer collaboration and greater emphasis of the importance of medicine supply within Government as key points.
However, the elephant in the committee room is profitability. This is touched on by the report saying, ‘The Drug Tariff price has led to generic medicine prices becoming so low that it no longer becomes desirable for some manufacturers to supply into this market’.
This means there are risks that the generic industry has to abandon certain medicines and that pharmacies cannot afford to buy them even if they are available. There are concessions paid to pharmacies which are meant to counter this, but they are probably too few and too low.
The analysis shown in the graph shows the number of concessions per month, the number of products where their average market price exceeds the drug tariff and the number of products which are unprofitable if pharmacy expenses like rent, rates, salaries, heating, lighting and clawback are included.
Medicine supply is under immense pressure around the world due to many factors, including increased demand, climate change, long supply chains, conflict and money.
Without additional cash, shortages can only get worse.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5901/ldselect/pubserv/252/25202.htm