For UK pharmaceutical and life sciences leaders
Consultants want to prescribe your medicine privately, the formulary is stopping them
Private hospital formularies control a large share of UK private prescribing volume, yet there is no national pathway to secure inclusion. Without a structured approach, willing prescribers cannot act and revenue accrues to listed competitors.
Two minutes. Solva follows up with specific formulary inclusion options.
- Consultants expressing frustration that they cannot prescribe a specific medicine privately due to its absence from hospital formularies
- Competitor medicines, potentially with inferior clinical profiles, being prescribed due to established formulary presence
- Lost sales revenue and market share in the growing UK private healthcare sector
- Increased off-formulary prescribing requests, leading to administrative burden and potential delays in patient care.
- Increased administrative burden for medical and commercial teams managing ad-hoc formulary requests
- Inefficient resource allocation due to a lack of a structured market access strategy for the private sector
- Significant loss of potential revenue from private prescribing, estimated to be access to approximately 60% of UK private prescribing volume (Problem Card, IHPN, 2024)
- Increased costs associated with reactive, unstructured attempts to gain formulary access
- Damage to the pharmaceutical company's reputation among private consultants and healthcare providers
- Perception of being less patient-centric if innovative medicines are not accessible in private settings
- The primary root cause is the fragmented and opaque nature of private hospital formularies in the UK, which lack a centralised approval body like NICE for the NHS.
- Each private hospital group operates independent processes, criteria, and timelines for formulary inclusion, creating a complex and resource-intensive landscape for pharmaceutical companies to navigate.
- This is compounded by a lack of dedicated internal resources or expertise within many pharma companies to specifically address the nuances of the private sector formulary landscape.
Medicines with active formulary inclusion programmes achieved private hospital listing rates 45% higher than those relying on passive prescriber demand. The average time to formulary inclusion in a major private hospital group is 6 to 12 months with a structured approach versus 18 to 36 months without. (Problem Card, IHPN, 2024)
Source: Not directly verifiable from public IHPN reports, cited from problem card.
How to fix it
Map the formulary status of your medicine across the major private hospital groups including Spire, HCA, Nuffield, Ramsay, and BMI. Identify the formulary committee processes and submission requirements for each group. Prepare a formulary submission dossier that addresses clinical evidence, safety, cost-effectiveness, and patient need. Build relationships with the pharmacy directors and formulary committee chairs at the key groups. Engage a specialist private market access consultant to manage the formulary inclusion programme.
Frequently asked questions
Why does this problem persist?
Private hospital formularies are the gatekeeping mechanism for medicine access in the independent sector. Unlike the NHS, where NICE guidance and national formularies provide a clear pathway, private hospital formularies are managed independently by each hospital group, with different processes, criteria, and timelines. Pharma companies that have not mapped the private formulary landscape and developed a structured inclusion strategy are losing private prescribing to competitors whose medicines are already listed, even where their clinical profile is superior.
What is the cost of leaving it unaddressed?
A medicine achieving formulary inclusion across the five major private hospital groups gains access to approximately 60% of UK private prescribing volume. A structured private formulary inclusion programme costs £20,000 to £50,000 and typically pays back within six months of first listing. (Problem Card, IHPN, 2024)
This is exactly what I do with UK private practices. Answer the few questions above and I'll come back personally with where to start. Paul.