On June 1 patient-led campaign group Just Treatment, and social justice organisation, Global Justice Now (GJN) issued a legal challenge to the government implementing its toxic deal on pharmaceuticals that concedes vital ground to President Trump and the giant US pharma corporations.
The campaigners are aiming to block changes to the NHS’s price control mechanism, arguing the changes could end up costing the NHS an extra £9 billion. The changes have not even been debated by MPs, while the government refuses to publish its assessment of their impact.
Just Treatment and GJN have written to the UK Government setting out why they believe the government has acted unlawfully in pushing through the changes to the NHS’ drug price control frameworks. This is the first stage of a legal challenge to a central pillar of the US-UK trade deal on pharmaceuticals.
A statutory instrument, which passed into law in April, has given ministers direct control over the key cost-effectiveness threshold the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) uses to determine which medicines are made routinely available on the NHS.
This change enables the government to deliver on the promises made to Donald Trump under the trade deal on pharmaceuticals announced in December 2025. It is part of a package of changes that would commit the UK to dramatically increasing NHS spending on patented medicines over the next ten years.
Full article on The Lowdown, 11 June 2026
