NEW legislation which is set to ban greedy drugs firms from extracting hundreds of millions of pounds from the cash strapped NHS has been enshrined in law, thanks to a leading Barrow pharmacist.

In 2015, Ben Merriman uncovered a scandal that allowed drug companies to hyper-inflate the cost of debranded medicines by thousands of per cent.

He stepped forward to raise the alarm about the despicable practice, which is thought to have stripped at least £2.6m from Cumbria's health budget in the last two years.

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Now the Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) bill has been given royal assent in parliament to ban the practice and stop millions from being stripped unnecessarily from the public purse.

Mr Merriman welcomed news that the practice has been outlawed.

He told the Evening Mail: "The NHS is the nation's most precious service, yet these drugs firms have exploited it using this loophole without any justification.

"It has taken millions and millions of pounds out of the NHS. I'm glad the government has recognised this and put this legislation in place."

The price of branded drugs, those that are still within patent, is tightly controlled by the government.

Price hiking occurs when a firm buys the formula of a less frequently prescribed drug that is at the end of its patent before significantly increasing its cost to the NHS.

It has resulted in continual monthly increases for a range of drugs which include fusidic eye drops, which rose from £2.69 a bottle in 2012 to £29.06 per bottle last year - a mark up of 1080 per cent. Substantially cheaper alternatives are available.

The price of 10mg hydrocortisone tablets, made by Activis UK, rose from 70p a pack in April 2008 to £88 per pack by March 2016 - and increase of 12,000 per cent.

And the cost of some cancer drugs, such as tamoxifen for breast cancer, had also been found to have been hiked as well as some used by Parkinsons' disease patients and those with neurological conditions.

Mr Merriman added: "I have seen these prices continue to rise over the last three years. One drug went up 12,000 per cent.

"Competition should keep the prices of unbranded medicines down, but where the market fails we needed parliament to take action."

Moves to introduce new laws to clamp down on greedy drugs firms using generic medicines to overprice medicines was announced in September 2016.

It gained approval in both the House of Commons and House of Lords before being granted royal assent on Thursday - days before parliament is dissolved ahead of a snap general election on June 8.

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