Every year, the UK spends an estimated £2.6billion on generic drugs – medicines, including statins for lowering cholesterol and tablets to control high blood pressure, that are taken by millions of NHS patients every day.
Indeed, these mass-produced ‘copies’ – which are a fraction of the cost and almost always as effective as the original, branded versions – now account for a whopping 80 per cent of all drugs prescribed on the NHS.
Yet Britain produces only about a quarter of what it needs when it comes to generic medicines – the rest have to be imported, primarily from countries such as India and China.
It’s a disparity that’s been highlighted in recent years by chronic shortages in the UK of vital drugs for everything from osteoporosis and the menopause to depression, cancer and diabetes – leaving patients unable to get their medication and others having to shop around different pharmacies to try to obtain the supply they need.
Last week, it was revealed that supply shortages have become so routine that 96 per cent of pharmacies reported being unable to dispense a prescription at least once a day, according to a recent survey of 500 pharmacies by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA).
Meanwhile, a survey of more than 2,000 patients by the British Generic Manufacturers Association last June found that almost half had been affected by prescription drug shortages – with 17 per cent saying that, on occasion, they had to go without their pills.
Turbulence in the global supply chain of medicine – triggered by the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine – have meant the UK has been competing with other countries for dwindling medicine supplies.
Now one of the UK’s leading pharmaceutical industry experts has warned repeated drug shortages are a matter of ‘national security’ and called on the Government to ensure the UK can supply its own needs.
Every year, the UK spends an estimated £2.6billion on generic drugs
Dr Andrew Hill, a senior visiting research fellow in the department of pharmacology and therapeutics at the University of Liverpool, says Britain faces mounting competition for key drugs on the global market.
He says: ‘If we can secure our own drugs supplies by actually manufacturing them, then we are not at the end of a long, fragile supply chain.’
And the drug supply problem is set to get worse.
A new report, shared exclusively with Good Health, warns that the country faces mounting drugs shortages because of ‘penny pinching’ by successive governments.
The report, by the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA), which represents chains such as Boots, focuses on generic medicines and warns that increasing numbers of global suppliers are shunning the UK in favour of countries that are prepared to pay more.
The report, which covers England and Wales, focuses on common medicines such as omeprazole for acid reflux, aspirin and the blood-pressure tablet ramipril. These drugs are invariably sourced from India and China and often from just a handful of manufacturers.
Every three months the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) publishes a ‘drug tariff’, a list of how much it is prepared to refund pharmacists for every medicine they supply to the NHS. If pharmacies cannot source the medicine at that tariff, the DHSC will offer a ‘price concession’ in England to refund the difference.
However, it only does this once it has considered a formal application from the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee – which represents pharmacies in government discussions.
The CCA report reveals that the number of price concessions rose from 195 in 2014/15 to 1,640 in 2023/24 – an increase of over 740 per cent and an additional outlay of £43million.
Some experts say the system is flawed and pharmacists run the risk of being out of pocket if they pay the inflated global market price.
Although suppliers can source from abroad when there are shortages, they face inflated prices – and for UK pharmacies there is only so much money in the government kitty.
Malcolm Harrison, chief executive of the CCA, told Good Health: ‘Saving pennies is costing the taxpayer pounds with patients facing a “new normal” of rolling medicine shortages.
‘The Government must invest to make the UK a far more attractive place to supply medicines. It needs to pay just a bit more to avoid these shortages.’
The UK faces an additional threat, warns Dr Hill, from the European Union forming a Critical Medicines Alliance (CMA), a body designed to ensure EU members jump the queue when sourcing medicines.
‘The EU has made a list of the 300 most important drugs and vaccines, and Europe is going to secure its own supply contracts exclusively with the generics companies, which is going to push the UK further back in the queue,’ says Dr Hill.
With no immediate prospect of the UK joining the CMA, the only viable solution, says Dr Hill, is a home-grown industry that can fulfil the UK’s needs for generic and branded medicines – and one that is prepared to start paying more for generic drugs than we currently do.
Dr Hill says that Britain needs to do ‘stress’ tests – ‘just as with the banks’ – and adds: ‘This is an issue of national security.’