The UK government must publish a detailed impact assessment of the costs and benefits of the US-UK medicines partnership

On the eve of the Easter bank holiday weekend, the UK government finally published the full text of its deal with the US government on the prices the NHS will pay for new branded drugs.1The central plank of the deal is to waive tariffs on UK pharmaceutical exports to the US in return for the NHS paying 25% more for new branded drugs. The initial mechanism for the latter is an equivalent increase in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) standard cost threshold from 1 April 2026, although further price increases may well be needed to meet the scale of extra drug spending the government has signed up to.2 This revised threshold means that a drug will be considered sufficiently cost effective if for every £35 000 extra it costs above the current standard NHS treatment for the condition, it improves health by at least one quality...