Today, Health Minister Lord O’Shaughnessy confirmed that NHS supplies from Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva could amount to £0.5 billion, representing a “significant and important part of National Health Service medicines provision”.
In a written answer, Lord O’Shaughnessy said that Israel “plays an important role in helping supply medicines for the NHS”. He estimated that some 100 million prescription items for medicines used in England come from companies based in Israel.
Lord O’Shaughnessy said that while “information on the cost of generic drugs supplied by Teva is not collected centrally”, the Health Department estimates that “the total reimbursement cost of these medicines dispensed in the community may be in the region of £0.5 billion”.
He added: “This does not take account of the margin that pharmacies earn on the medicines they dispense. This margin is subsequently taken into account as contributing towards the target level of funding for community pharmacy as part of the community pharmacy contractual framework”.
The Minister underlined that “Teva also funds clinical development in the United Kingdom, including research into dementia”.
In September 2016, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Community Health and Care, David Mowat MP, said that without Israeli supplies used by the NHS, there would likely be “significant shortages of some medicines important for patient health”, which would cause a “significant impact on competition and in all likelihood increase prices paid by the NHS”.
