Britain’s largest drug company has launched a forthright attack on the NHS’s drug rationing body, accusing it of blocking innovation after it failed to approve the first new medicine in a decade to treat the disabling condition lupus. GlaxoSmithKline was unusually critical of the decision by Nice, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, and also the Scottish Medicines Consortium, to reject its drug belimumab (brand name Benlysta) in final draft guidance. The UK’s appraisal system, said GSK, was “a fundamental problem”.
