The Times newspaper has revealed that a British businessman has earned £100 million in the past five years by selling licences for drugs, many of which have undergone huge price rises.
Anil Sharma, 64, is among the biggest individual beneficiaries so far identified from the exploitation of a loophole in NHS rules that has allowed companies to implement large price increases.
The companies have been able to avoid limits on drug profits by selling medicines under generic rather than brand names.
Although he has not raised prices himself, Mr Sharma has managed to make a fortune by acting as a middleman, obtaining licences for generic drugs and selling them to other pharmaceutical companies.
Over the past five years at least 24 of the drugs for which he has sold licences have had dramatic price rises.
These include three types of trimipramine, an antidepressant that has quadrupled in price to about £200 a packet since he sold the licences; it was as little as £11 when he first obtained it.
Another drug, a hyperthyroidism treatment called carbimazole, rose from £6.77 for a packet of 5mg tablets when he sold the licence to a peak of more than £100.
