The Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) 2014 Heads of Agreement, announced on 6 November 2013, outlines the terms of the five-year deal between the pharmaceuctical industry and the government in the UK. For the first time, the PPRS caps future growth in the NHS’s branded medicines bill, between 2014 and 2018. OHE’s model for projecting NHS medicines expenditure was an important tool used by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) to produce its forecast for discussion with the Department of Health.

This Research Paper extends the OHE model projecting medicines expenditure in the UK to 2018, building on our earlier projections, through 2015, which were posted here and published in PharmacoEconomics. Our approach differs in that the model is built “from the bottom up,” beginning with consideration of what mix of medicines is likely to be available on the market rather than basing projections only on macroeconomic variables.