Welcome back to your monthly news roundup, where we take a look back at the top moments to hit the pharma headlines. It’s time to reflect on December 2025
A tariff truce with strings attached
Just when it seemed the twists and turns of UK–US tariff-gate might drag on indefinitely, the two sides shook hands at the eleventh hour. Unveiled in early December, the deal will shield around £5bn of UK drug exports from US duties for at least three years. But this was never a free lunch. In return, the nation has agreed to soften its domestic stance on medicines spending. A planned 25% uplift in NICE cost-effectiveness thresholds signals a political willingness to pay more for innovation – a shift expected to have ripple effects beyond Britain’s borders.
The real sting, though, lies in the scale. Independent health-economic modelling suggests the reforms could add roughly £3bn a year to the NHS drugs bill once fully embedded. Without a matching uplift in NHS funding, higher thresholds won’t magic money out of thin air – they will simply push pressure elsewhere in the system. Watch this space.
The VPAG reset – finally predictable?
If the tariff deal opened the door, VPAG reform is what stepped through it. Just a week after the US agreement was signed, the UK government confirmed that the VPAG payment rate for newer branded medicines will fall to 14.5% in 2026, a sharp retreat from 2025’s much-criticised 22.9%. For an industry bruised by volatile and historically high clawbacks, the gesture matters almost as much as the number. Crucially, this is not a one-off concession but part of a wider pledge to cap rebates for newer medicines at 15% of net NHS sales through to 2028. This offers pharma something it has long argued the UK lacks: predictability. That stability is badly needed in a sector where global competition is ruthless. Last year, Spain became Europe’s top destination for commercial trials, while China continues to cut timelines at scale.
Honourable mention of the month:
In less political news, another story to emerge in December concerned Europe’s quietly swelling vaccine pipeline. A new analysis showing 91 vaccine and monoclonal antibody candidates in development, including 41% targeting pathogens with no existing approved prophylaxis, points to a region thinking beyond COVID-19 and towards long-term resilience. The World Health Organization has repeatedly stressed that future pandemic preparedness depends less on predicting the next pathogen than on having adaptable platforms ready to respond. As Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, WHO, said in statement: “History will judge us, not on whether we saw the next pandemic coming, but on how well we were prepared.”
