The National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland is expected to start considering special discounts, cash-back offers, and other cost sharing schemes offered by manufacturers of expensive pharmaceuticals.  These arrangements are likely to benefit patients with diseases such as multiple myeloma and other cancers as well as diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

With the new policy, drug companies may offer to pay for part of an expensive treatment or offer money back for drugs that fail to work. According to Kate Seymour of Macmillon Cancer Support, a British charity, “Risk sharing schemes are not a panacea for increased access to drugs, but it is one way of bringing the costs down and getting drugs to more patients.”

Cost sharing schemes are already being used by the NHS elsewhere in the United Kingdom.  For example, the NHS in England and Wales recently approved a cost-sharing plan for Celgene’s Revlimid (lenalidomide) in which the NHS will pay for the first two years of treatment and Celgene will cover the cost of any further treatment.  (See the related Beacon article.) This policy change puts Scotland behind England and Wales, as the NHS in Scotland currently does not reimburse the use of Revlimid, claiming it does not meet cost-effectiveness criteria.

England also approves the use of Velcade (bortezomib) for myeloma patients who have tried one previous therapy.  However, Scotland requires at least two previous treatments.

Eric Low, chief executive of Myeloma UK (a charity for patients with multiple myeloma), stated, “After years of Scotland leading the way for approving new cancer drugs, it is now behind the rest of the UK. The Scottish Government needs to review its processes for introducing new drugs to the NHS and catch up quickly with progress made in England.”

To learn more, see the full article about the policy change at the Scotsman Web site.