US drug firms say it will be easier to hike prices to NHS after Brexit, document reveals

'It should prove easier to overcome these challenges with the UK as an individual negotiating partner'

US health firms are confident it will be easier to gain access to the NHS and hike the price of medicines after Brexit, a document reveals.

The prospectus sets out how pharmaceutical companies will demand new rules that “prohibit discrimination” against foreign suppliers and end “restrictions on the number of suppliers”.

Written by the US Chamber of Commerce last month, it notes the failed three-long battle to strike a deal with the EU, which collapsed partly because of fears over opening up public health services.

And, crucially, it states: “Concerns about potential impacts on Britain's National Health Service are being aired.

“It should prove easier to overcome these challenges with the UK as an individual negotiating partner.”

The document, revealed by the Mirror, was seized on by Labour as fresh evidence that “US big pharma companies are lining up to cash-in on a toxic Johnson-Trump deal”.

“These mega corporations want us to pay more for medicine and the proposed US-UK deal could draw £500m a week from our NHS,” said Jonathan Ashworth, the party’s health spokesman.

The controversy comes after Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, admitted US firms would be free to demand higher prices after Brexit, while insisting that was “highly unlikely”.

Donald Trump, in the UK for the Nato summit, drew ridicule after insisting he wanted “nothing to do with” the NHS – despite saying, earlier this year, that “everything is on the table, so the NHS or anything else”.

Barry Gardiner, Labour’s shadow trade secretary, claimed the US president had been coached in what to say by No 10, with Boris Johnson desperate to avoid political damage from the row.

The 24-page document, headed ‘Services Priorities for a Future US-UK Trade Agreement’, sheds more light on the US demand for “full market access” to the NHS after Brexit.

Currently, Nice – the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence – evaluates the cost and clinical effectiveness of each medicine to decide which should be purchased.

However, the US has made clear it wants to end the body’s ability to block drugs it does not consider value for money.

The Trump administration also wants to change patent law, potentially paving the way for US drug firms to demand higher prices for their medicines and over a longer period of time.

The new document says: "United States will seek rules that prohibit, across all services sectors, discrimination against foreign services suppliers and restrictions on the number of services suppliers in the market.”

In a Sky News interview, Mr Raab suggested it would not be in the US’s interests to hike prices if “you reduce the amount, the volume of purchases”.

And he said: “The key point in this is that we will do the right thing by the patients, the consumers in this country.”