Doctors are being urged to stop prescribing expensive branded medicines to save hundreds of million a year.
The NHS watchdog is encouraging to offer patients generic drugs or ‘biosimilars’ – near-identical products – which are far cheaper but just as effective.
NHS Improvement believes that some of the biggest savings could be made if doctors stopped prescribing the breast cancer wonder drug Herceptin.
Doctors are being urged to stop prescribing expensive branded medicines to save hundreds of million a year
This has been used for nearly 20 years to treat very aggressive types of breast cancer and is known to increase survival rates by more than a third.
But NHS Improvement has calculated that doctors could save £100million a year by prescribing patients near-identical drugs, which work in exactly the same way.
Similarly, doctors are being urged to stop offering patients an expensive injection Humira to treat arthritis, the skin condition psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease.
Instead they should prescribe biosimilars for a fraction of the cost.
Herceptin costs £1,222 a dose and is given every three weeks for 12 months, working out at nearly £22,000 a year.
Humira is £704 a month or £8,500 annually. There are no figures for how much generic medicines or biosimilars cost but they are normally a fraction of the price.
Last year the NHS saved £324million by avoiding prescribing generic medicines.
This year it hopes to make the same savings again, with an additional £200 million a year by avoiding Herceptin and Humira.
The NHS watchdog is encouraging to offer patients generic drugs or ‘biosimilars’ – near-identical products – which are far cheaper but just as effective (stock image)
Jeremy Marlow, executive director of operational productivity at NHS Improvement said: ‘As more people are diagnosed with long term conditions, such as arthritis and cancer, we must ensure that the NHS uses its resources as efficiently as possible to treat and care for them.
‘By delivering £324million in savings in a single year from switching to better value but equally effective and safe medicines, the NHS has been able to help more patients manage their conditions.
‘There is more still to do, with £200million of additional savings to be achieved this year.
‘We will also continue to find further opportunities to use medicines more effectively and make every penny of the NHS’s budget count.’
Health Minister Steve Barclay MP said: ‘We want to support the NHS to make sure every penny is spent effectively.
‘For too long vital funds have been used to buy expensive medicines instead of equally effective and better value alternatives.
‘Under our long-term plan for the NHS, which will see us increase funding by an average 3.4 per cent per year, we need to do better.’