Drugmakers lost a legal battle against programs promoted by the UK’s National Health Service that encourage docs to prescribe cheaper meds. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry had argued NHS incentives were an illegal inducement under strict European rules on promotion. But the European Court of Justice ruled they complied with European Union advertising legislation (see the ABPI statement).

Under the programs, UK medical practices are rewarded for switching patients to generics or prescribing them to new patients who would otherwise get more expensive patented meds. Individual docs who share in the profits of medical practices could ultimately benefit from the incentives, prompting drugmakers to argue they breached an EU ban on incentives for prescribing, Reuters writes. In other words, some financial incentives are better than others, especially if the government is doing the offering.

The court, however, decided the prohibition couldn’t apply to national public health authorities who have the responsibility of controlling public expenditure, the news services adds. The ABPI is, not surprisingly, disappointed by the ruling, which did not follow an earlier opinion of the European Advocate-General.

Maria Isabel Manley, head of the regulatory practice at law firm Bristows, believes the ruling will stun drugmakers. “Whilst prescribing incentive schemes may have the ultimate objective of reducing national expenditure on medicines, to tolerate them is to pull the teeth out the European advertising legislation,” she tells Reuters.

But the European Generic Medicines Association said it was in the interests of both patients and healthcare systems that prescribing should take account of the affordability of different drugs.