Cost of UK’s drug price deal with US will come out of NHS budget

There is growing concern among MPs that ministers have been evasive about the costs involved in the agreed deal. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Alamy

The cost of the government’s drug pricing deal with the Trump administration will come out of the NHS budget instead of the Treasury’s and could eventually reach £9bn a year, campaigners fear.

Patrick Vallance, the science minister, has confirmed that the costs – initially an extra £1bn over three years– will be borne by the Department of Health and Social Care, which funds the NHS in England, and not the Treasury.