The government’s policy to fast track “innovative” drugs into the NHS to showcase the UK as a great place for industry has been described as “a pretty spectacular failure,” because of the way a test case using the cholesterol lowering drug inclisiran was received.
The rapid introduction of inclisiran into the UK was part of the government’s drive to help the country regain its “status as a science superpower” after Brexit,1 which would bypass some of the usual routes to getting a drug into clinical practice.
The policy was widely supported across government, including by the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for International Trade, NHS England, the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, and the Office for Life Sciences.
Emails from 2021 obtained through freedom of information requests show that the health minister James Bethell had a meeting with Novartis where using “the UK’s new regulatory freedoms where it could support innovative medicines” was discussed.
Minutes of the meeting circulated to officials in the Office of Life Sciences and Department of Trade said, “DHSC are looking to have lots more relationships with industry in the future and want to deliver on commitments made; Novartis still believe inclisiran could be a poster child for the UK.”
Members of a “senior advisory group” on the government’s policy to accelerate the use of inclisiran included Tim Ferris, national director of transformation at NHS England, Matt Whitty, director of NHS England and Improvement and chief executive of the Accelerated Access Collaborative, and Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England.
When the “collaboration” to promote the use of inclisiran in the NHS was announced in January 2020 Novartis chief executive Vas Narasimhan said that the company was “excited to partner with the …