A wide-ranging overhaul of the drug pricing scheme that would tie the price of medicines more closely to their impact on patients' health was urged by the Office of Fair Trading yesterday.

In the conclusions to a study conducted over the past 18 months, the OFT called for a long-term shift towards "ex ante value-based pricing", which would set prices based on a review of the clinical and cost effectiveness of drugs and review them again periodically as new data became available.