As ne­go­ti­a­tions with Eng­land la­bor on, Scot­land re­jects rou­tine use of Ver­tex's cys­tic fi­bro­sis drugs

As the bat­tle be­tween Ver­tex and Eng­land’s Na­tion­al Health Ser­vice (NHS) con­tin­ues — the Scot­tish NHS has re­ject­ed two of the drug­mak­er’s cys­tic fi­bro­sis med­i­cines.

The US drug­mak­er has been locked in ne­go­ti­a­tion with NICE, which has re­fused to al­low the drug in to Eng­land’s NHS un­til Ver­tex $VRTX of­fers it a dis­count on the treat­ment’s price tag that would com­pel the agency to look fa­vor­ably up­on its cost-ef­fec­tive­ness. On Mon­day, the Scot­tish NHS spurned two of the com­pa­ny’s med­i­cines — Orkam­bi and Symke­vi — for the same rea­son, to the dis­may of thou­sands of pa­tients.

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