Rhiannone Bahia
Commercial Director Generics, UK, Lupin Healthcare UK
Increased savings across the NHS through generic medicine supply has allowed government to start routine commissioning of essential HIV treatment and prevention medication.
During these economically challenging times the NHS needs to pursue financial savings in order to continue offering free healthcare to all UK citizens. Generic medicines can help achieve this.
A generic medicine contains the same active ingredient as the equivalent original branded drug, it is marketed once the originator’s patent protection has expired. Generic medicines deliver huge savings to the NHS with approximately 75% of prescriptions being fulfilled by generic medicines.1
Using generic medicines to prevent HIV
In recent years, generic manufacturers have challenged originator patents within HIV, overturning such patents allows early generic entry which reduces the NHS spend by offering lower prices.
By adopting generic medicines in HIV management, the substantial savings made by the NHS have contributed to advances in HIV patient outcomes and lower infection rates. The NHS has been able to use these savings to invest in initiatives such as the PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) trial which allowed patients early access to a drug that protects against possible HIV infections.
On the 1st April 2020 the Secretary of State for Health & Social Care, Matt Hancock MP announced the start of routine commissioning of PrEP with an aim to eliminate new HIV infections within 10 years and end the HIV epidemic. Interventions such as PrEP will help to contribute to the reduction in the HIV transmission rate in the UK.
It is important to continue to develop and launch drugs that focus on delivering value and unmet patient need in the areas of HIV, neurology and respiratory.
‘‘We estimate that Lupin’s HIV medicine supply in the UK alone has saved over £200 million for the NHS over the last 3 years.2 This has meant Lupin have had to challenge patents and launch at risk to deliver such savings’’ commented Ben Ellis General Manager of Lupin Healthcare UK ‘‘we are tremendously proud of how the pharmaceutical industry along with the NHS have transformed the threat of HIV and AIDS for UK patients’’.
Focussing on delivering value and patient access
Looking towards the future, it is important Lupin continues to develop and launch drugs that focus on delivering value and unmet patient need in the areas of HIV, neurology and respiratory. We will continue to fight for early entry in the generic sector where we believe we can increase further NHS savings.
Lupin Healthcare are part of the Indian based international pharmaceutical company Lupin Limited, who have a presence in 100 countries and are one of the biggest volume suppliers of medicines in the US and India. Lupin Healthcare are one of the largest volume suppliers of HIV drugs into the UK.
Lupin Healthcare have sponsored and written this article
LUP-CORP-010
Date of preparation: November 20
1 https://www.oxera.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Oxera-study-on-the-supply-of-generic-medicines-in-the-UK-26-June-2019.pdf
2 Data on File LUP-CORP-002