Barbara Roberts, SHA Vice-Chair
Statement from Global Justice Now:
“On December 1st 2025 the UK government signed an agreement in principle with the US that will permanently weaken NHS drug price controls, locking in dramatically higher medicines prices. Under the terms of the deal the UK will double spending on new medicines from 0.3% GDP to 0.6% by 2035. This means spending as much as 9 billion a year extra by 2035. Diverting funds from other parts of the NHS to pay for higher drug prices could result intent 1000 of excess death annually”
GJN continued, “Under the deal, the UK has agreed to raise its price threshold for buying new medicines by 25%. A key agreement which currently helps the NHS control medicines spending will also be hit, with the amount drugs companies pay back to the NHS from sales of branded medicines to be capped at 15%. The government has claimed that the deal will only cost around £1 billion per year, but the UK’s new commitment to double the amount the NHS spends on medicines to 0.6% of GDP suggests a much larger increase is eventually likely.” (GJN, 2026)
Global Justice wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care the Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, which was signed by 200 leading figures across healthcare, academia and civil society. Warning that a new agreement which is set to funnel billions to big pharmaceutical companies would be a “catastrophe for all NHS patients”, demanded transparency around this decision and its impacts. This letter was duly signed by many members of the SHA.
On the 28th of January a parliamentary briefing was held at Parliament in Portcullis House. This meeting was chaired by The Right Honourable John MacDonald Donald MP Hayes and Harlington. As signatories of this letter, the SHA chair Rathi Guhadasan and myself were invited to attend.
Speakers included Dr Andrew Hill PhD, a Senior Visiting Fellow at Liverpool university. Hill gave a very insightful informative presentation complete with slides. He mentioned Jeremy Corbyn who said back in 2019 that any potential trade deal with the US will undermine prices and open up to the big pharma companies. Now the new deal has been done there are many concerns particularly about the lack of impact assessments and the vulnerability of NICE.
What this trade deal means in bringing extra costs to the NHS:
The NHS has to double spending on new drugs, from 0.3% to 0.6% of UK GDP, by 2035. 0.35% by 2028. Drugs are “cost-effective” if the NHS pays up to £35,00 per life-year saved (QALY, 2026). Drug companies pay less tax: 10-15% instead of 2 rebate to voluntary pricing agreement (VPAG). Most of this money will go to US drug companies, who already avoid taxes.
Many diseases can be diagnosed and treated very cheaply. We can spend NHS budgets most efficiently on treating common health conditions. We should not divert this money to pay for expensive new drugs.
NICE has been a consistent bug bear for the big pharma companies, but it still controls what the NHS can pay for the drugs. Newly developed medicines such as those for Alzheimer’s are deemed too expensive for patients to receive. A vital treatment which could help relieve and lessen the progression of the disease – and bio pharmaceutical companies such as Gilead won’t work with the NHS because they won’t make enough profit.
It’s a scary thought that if the NHS has to start paying for itself it could result in an excess of 200,000 deaths per annum in England. Other nations would also be affected. Likewise, the 10 year Plan, much lauded by Wes Streeting, there’s no mention of the cost to the NHS.
We then heard from Gayle who joined the campaign group Just Treatment back in 2022 as a Senior Pharma Organiser. Gayle has a daughter who was born with Cystic Fibrosis, and has been fighting and campaigning for her daughter so she can receive the most up-to-date treatment and medication against the progression of the disease. Certain drugs such as Kaftria were mentioned, which has been seen as a breakthrough drug in the treatment of CF. But Gayle was at first told she couldn’t have access to the drug for her daughter, because it was deemed too expensive for the NHS to stock and supply.
In fact during negotiations with big pharma companies to acquire certain drugs, the drugs themselves actually went out of date sat on the shelves because, heaven forbid, a higher price should be paid for them. It seems these companies would rather see patients die in their push for higher prices. Yet Kaftria was widely available in countries like Argentina.
Gayle said, “I know from personal experience how pharmaceutical companies are able to abuse their monopolies in pursuit of excessive profits, leaving patients and families to suffer without access to drugs that they desperately need. This situation is unacceptable and by standing together and holding pharma companies and indolent governments to account, we can force change and save lives.The NHS is under unbearable financial pressure, yet with this deal the government has prioritised inflating corporate profits over saving patients’ lives. I spent years fighting a multibillion dollar American drug company in order to win access to a lifesaving medicine for my child. They held her life to ransom in order to extract the highest possible price from the NHS. Now the entire industry, with Donald Trump’s help, has held the whole of the NHS to ransom to further boost their excessive profits. We need full transparency on what the government has signed the UK up to, and the Health Select committee should urgently summon ministers to explain how they can justify putting the NHS and thousands of lives at risk to please Trump and the big pharma lobby.”
Tim Bierley of Global Justice Now spoke after on the deal and said, “This dodgy deal will plough billions of pounds to big pharma corporations at the expense of other parts of the NHS. The human impact of this cannot be understated: this will lead to worse health outcomes, and thousands of wholly avoidable deaths. We expect big pharma companies to put their shareholders first, but the government’s readiness to sacrifice lives and the health of the NHS at the command of these giant corporations is alarming. This deal must be held up to the light of democratic scrutiny before the government hands billions more in public money to greedy corporations.”
Trump, having taken control of this deal with the UK, won’t stop here, he’s already gunning for Europe. The deal with us is crying out for scrutiny. No impact assessment has been done. No accountability. The Secretary of State should accurately tell us what this deal is going to cost – and subsequently, how many will die because they can’t get access to the drugs which will literally save their lives! The panel agreed that a cross-party panel should be set up, and to draft a letter to Wes Streeting.
Watch this space!
Links – Just Treatment https://justtreatment.org/about
Global Justice Now https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/news/nhs-pharma-deal-a-catastrophe-for-all-nhs-patients-over-200-health-and-economic-experts-state/