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The US has agreed to spare the UK from threatened trade tariffs on pharmaceutical products.
The announcement was made following months of uncertainty over whether exports from the UK, and elsewhere across Europe, would be subject to steep charges.
Via the policy update, the UK has become the only country in the world to secure a zero per cent tariff on pharmaceuticals exported to the US. Tariffs are taxes imposed on imports into a country.
In return, the UK has agreed to increase the baseline threshold used to assess if medicines can be used by the NHS.
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The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) will increase the base threshold by 25%: from £20,000-£30,000 to £25,000-£35,000.
It means NICE will be able to approve medicines that deliver significant health improvements but might have been declined purely on cost-effectiveness grounds, the government said.
This could include breakthrough cancer treatments, therapies for rare diseases, and innovative approaches to conditions that have long been difficult to treat, it added.
This will give NICE the opportunity to approve more new medicines and allow a greater number of patients to benefit from them, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) said.
It pointed out that NICE’s baseline cost-effectiveness threshold has not been increased for over 20 years.
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