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Drug firms defend campaigner funding

01/10/2008

Britain's pharmaceutical companies have defended funding groups campaigning for certain drugs to be made available on the NHS.

A newspaper investigation revealed on Wednesday that some of the UK's largest drugs companies were providing campaign groups such as the Alzheimer's Society and the Royal National Institute for the Blind with up to half their income.

The Independent said that frequently this information was not disclosed.

According to the paper, the National Kidney Federation, the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance, the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society and Beating Bowel Cancer, as well as the two aforementioned charities, all received six-figure sums from drug companies in 2007.

But the industry has rejected claims its funding for groups targeting the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which decides which drugs should be available on the NHS, was not transparent.

A spokesperson for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) said companies were committed to "doing [their] bit".

According to the ABPI, the industry operates "under the very strict voluntary regulations that govern the funding of patient groups by industry, which ensure the greatest levels of transparency and responsibility".

"Pharmaceutical companies make a huge investment into public health when they develop a new medicine. It costs on average £550 million to produce a new medicine to and takes more than ten years, to bring each new treatment to patients," a statement elaborated, adding that the real cost of medicines had fallen 21 per cent in the last decade.

"It is natural, and an incentive to continue pioneering future research, that they should seek to recoup these costs through the final price."