With transparent criteria, panels of expert and lay assessors examine the evidence to decide which new drugs offer enough new benefit at an acceptable price. My son’s life depends on this cystic fibrosis drug. The NHS always has and always will ration – it would do so even with a budget twice the size. Vertex is trying to sell Orkambi, the first drug to treat cystic fibrosis’s underlying genetic causes, to the NHS for £105,000 per patient per year. He offered Vertex £500m to use its drugs for five years – but it has refused outright to give an inch.

Source: The Guardian March 07, 2019 13:56 UTC