NHS patients in England and Wales will get quicker access to new medicines after the government finalised a pharmaceutical partnership with the US and changed the way drugs are approved for use on the health service, a statement said.
Under the deal, British pharmaceutical exports to the US, worth at least £5 billion a year, will face no tariffs for at least three years. The government said the UK is the first country in the world to secure such terms.
The partnership also covers medical technology exports, with no new tariffs on medtech products for at least three years.
Separately, on March 31, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence changed the threshold it uses to decide whether a drug offers enough benefit to justify its cost. That threshold had not been updated in over 20 years.
Two medicines have already been approved under the new rules — a brain cancer drug for patients as young as 12, and a treatment for a rare form of stomach cancer for patients who had run out of other options.
Science minister Lord Vallance said patients "right across the NHS will benefit from access to life changing new medicines that they previously would have been denied," adding that the zero tariff arrangement would boost Britain's life sciences sector.
Health innovation minister Dr Zubir Ahmed said: "For too long, NHS patients have watched as some treatments available in other countries remained out of reach here. From April, thousands of people across the UK will be able to access treatments on the NHS that were previously out of reach."
Cathy Hampshire, who has lived with GIST cancer for five years, said she was "literally dancing around the room" when she heard that ripretinib — a treatment she had been fighting to access — had been approved. "When you're on the third of the 3 available treatments and been told there are no more options, you feel like the system has given up on you," she said.
The UK pharmaceutical industry added £28.5bn to the economy in 2025 and employs more than 50,000 people. The government has committed to doubling spending on innovative medicines as a share of GDP — from 0.3 per cent to 0.6 per cent — over the next ten years.
Bristol Myers Squibb said it planned to invest more than $500 million in the UK over the next five years. UCB had already announced a £500m investment in research and manufacturing in Surrey in January.
A new joint taskforce of government and industry will look at ways to improve the commercial environment for medicines in the UK, with pilot schemes expected by September 2026.
Richard Torbett, chief executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said the partnership "reinforces the UK's position as a global centre for innovation," but added that "further detail and technical work is underway."
The deal forms part of the government's Life Sciences Sector Plan, backed by over £2bn of investment, the statement added.
