As a battle over access to a pricey cystic fibrosis drug grinds on in the U.K., families have formed a buyer’s club to soon make a lower-cost version of a Vertex treatment.

Are Vertex and the U.K. government inching toward a resolution over a pricey drug? By Ed Silverman March 27, 2019. Reprints. Vertex chief executive Jeff Leiden Dina Rudick/The Boston Globe.

Meanwhile, U.K.'s cost watchdog NICE has held firm against Roche's price for multiple sclerosis launch Ocrevus in a particularly tough-to-treat form of the disease.

Off-and-on negotiations between Vertex and U.K. health officials over Orkambi pricing have lasted so long that the drugmaker had to trash almost 8,000 packs that expired last year.