A redetermined price increase for a type 2 diabetes drug has prevented community pharmacy owners from losing an estimated £2.6m.
Community Pharmacy England (CPE) said its intervention on Novo Nordisk’s 1.5mg, 4.mg and 9mg semaglutide tablets Rybelsus has helped “to avoid pharmacy owners dispensing these products at a loss”.
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The new price for prescriptions dispensed from August 2026 will be £120 after the previous NHS list price was £78.48.
CPE said the redetermined reimbursement prices will apply to branded and generic prescriptions “even though the August 2026 drug tariff still display the previous list prices” and said the new list prices will be updated in the September 2026 drug tariff.
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The negotiator said the current price change mechanism means pharmacy owners would wait one or two months before NHS list price changes are applied to reimbursement of branded products, and the impact is “more significant for products with large list price increases or for high volume lines”.
CPE “requested” the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to redetermine the reimbursement price for the Rybelsus tablets and it “continues to seek a review” of the current price change timetable for branded products “so that there is no extra months’ delay in applying any new list prices changes to reimbursement”.
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In July, CPE said the government agreed to “redetermined” May and June reimbursement prices for a number of products that “prevented community pharmacies from losing an estimated £80k to medicine price rises”.
