Drug risk sharing scheme 'costly failure' say experts

A RISK-sharing scheme set up to supply multiple sclerosis (MS) medicines to patients has been a "costly failure", experts have claimed.

The National Health Service could have saved 250 million if the scheme had been properly assessed after two years, while the money could have been better spent on other treatments, a British Medical Journal article said.

The programme was set up between the government and drug firms after the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) deemed a set of MS medicines too expensive and questioned their effectiveness.

Similar schemes are up and running to bring more drugs to NHS patients.

Under the MS risk-sharing scheme, established in 2002, the government agreed to pay for the drugs while research was carried out to assess their long-term cost effectiveness. The NHS would then gradually stop paying for the drugs if patients did not appear to be benefiting.

In 2009, seven years after the scheme was set up, data was published showing patients were performing less well than predicted. A total of 5,583 have received one or more treatments, costing around 350 million.