Billy Kenber
@billykenber
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Investigations @TheTimes / billy.kenber @thetimes .co.uk. Book on high prices and dirty tricks in pharma, Sick Money, out now:
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Thanks to
@HealthSenseUK
for this very generous review of Sick Money: The Truth About the Global Pharmaceutical Industry . Out now in paperback for a bargain £8.95!
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Exclusive: Tories received legal advice that Mark Menzies's alleged misuse of campaign funds amounted to fraud but decided they weren't obliged to tell the police because it was donors' rather than party money, whistleblower claims.
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🚨MPs are avoiding declaring corporate hospitality by allowing companies to put a falsely low value on tickets they’ve accepted to live sports and cultural events, scandal-hit MP Scott Benton told undercover reporters
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New: The government has wasted at least £150 million on face masks which can't be used by the NHS. The masks were bought from a family investment fund, Ayanda Capital, in a deal brokered by a government adviser. Thread follows 👇
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Breaking: Scott Benton HAS had the whip suspended following Times investigation
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Tory MP Scott Benton offered to table parliamentary questions, leak a confidential policy document and lobby ministers on behalf of gambling industry investors who proposed paying him thousands of pounds a month. Undercover investigation for The Times:
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Exclusive: Robert Jenrick had an extension to his £2.6 million Westminster townhouse approved by Conservative councillors despite officials objecting to the scheme three times 1/8
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Exclusive: Times undercover investigation exposes how Tory MP offered to lobby for gambling investors
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Scott Benton appeared willing to break multiple parliamentary rules when he met to discuss a job advising a fake investment fund. But I understand tthe Tories have tonight decided NOT to remove the whip (as Labour are calling for) at this stage
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Ex-minister Alun Cairns took job at Covid firm weeks before £75m contract
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Huge implications for MPs and lobbyists if this is going on at scale. By not declaring it, there is no public record and no way of telling if it is influencing how MPs act in parliament
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Katie Fieldhouse, the 78-year-old campaign manager at the centre of the scandal, also reveals claims that Menzies was "locked up" and rescued by aides on a previous occasion
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Extraordinary statement from the Conservative Party accompanying Menzies’s resignation. 3+ months after whistleblower contacted chief whip, declares not within CCHQ’s remit as funds didn’t belong to party and hasn’t looked at Menzies taking money from staff to pay “bad people”
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Scott Benton, MP for Blackpool South, was secretly filmed as he met reporters posing as investors. During the meeting, Benton guaranteed he could leak the gambling white paper 48 hours before publication
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Breaking: Understand Mark Menzies is about to announce he is standing down as an MP, unclear if that’s immediately or at the general election
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Full interview with Fieldhouse, a life-long Tory, on the Conservative party's investigation and how she feels betrayed by the party here:
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Revealed: Tory MP allegedly demanded campaign cash to pay ‘bad people’
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Scott Benton MP has LOST his appeal against a 35-day suspension. He was filmed in Times investigation offering to lobby ministers and leak confidential information for money: . Paves the way for likely by-election in Blackpool South (Tory majority = 3,690)
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They were part of a £252 million contract with Ayanda Capital, a family office owned by Tim Horlick, ex-husband of City figure Nicola Horlick, through a company based in the tax haven of Mauritius. Ayanda has never sold PPE before or won a govt contract before.
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Company raises price of bipolar drug from £3 to £87. Company buys rights to rival version of the same drug. Company pulls this cheaper rival version from the market.
Expected cost to NHS: £17m a year.
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When the government appealed for PPE suppliers in late March, 24,000 offers were lodged in a fortnight. Ayanda's came via Andrew Mills. Mills became a senior adviser to the company's board but he also has another role: he's on the Liz Truss's Board of Trade at Dep for Int. Trade
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More from our undercover investigation into Scott Benton coming shortly...
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They're all awaiting further testing. All told, the government handed out at least £5.5bn in emergency PPE contracts. Labour and the Lib Dems say there are serious questions to answer on the procurement process. GLP's cases continue.
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Remember liothyronine? The replacement hormone which rose in price by 6,000% and became so expensive some doctors took patients off the life-changing drug. We exposed this in The Times 2016 and earlier this year the CMA handed out a £100m+ fine... (1/13)
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The masks in question are FFP2 masks. 50 million were ordered and at least 43.5m have been delivered. They have ear loops and the current standards require head ties meaning they are unusable, the govt has admitted during legal case brought by
@GoodLawProject
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He also offered to table written questions and boasted of his direct access to ministers. He said MPs were often willing to do favours for a company which had given them corporate hospitality.
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Mark Menzies has resigned from thee Conservative Party and says he won’t stand at the next election
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Remember the family-run pest control supplies company PestFix? The £32m worth of isolation suits they supplied are sitting in a warehouse in Daventry. So too are gowns supplied by a confectionery wholesaler from Northern Ireland.
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Some new Robert Jenrick revelations coming in tomorrow's Times (and here from midnight-ish)..meanwhile Labour MPs are hoping to force a vote in Commons tomorrow compelling him to hand over documents relating to the Westferry Printworks scandal
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You can read our full investigation and watch the video here:
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Ahead of Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year, we’ve been investigating conditions for workers at Boohoo’s distribution warehouse in Burnley. An undercover reporter
@tomfball
spent a month working 12-hour night shifts earlier this year. Here’s what we found:
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New: Essential Pharma has agreed to halt plans to withdraw bipolar drug Priadel and return to negotiating table after competition watchdog open investigation into whether the company's behaviour broke the law. Background:
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When he made the offer, Mills didn't say he was representing Ayanda. He said he was representing Prospermill, a small company he set up with his wife in 2019. That company has no financial accounts but the govt was still prepared to do business with it.
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Following our Scott Benton investigation, we’re looking into MPs taking corporate hospitality.
If you’ve seen an MP in the hospitality/corporate section of an event and you think they haven’t declared it, please let us know at investigations
@thetimes
.co.uk or DM me here. Pls RT
🚨MPs are avoiding declaring corporate hospitality by allowing companies to put a falsely low value on tickets they’ve accepted to live sports and cultural events, scandal-hit MP Scott Benton told undercover reporters
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Tory MP Mark Menzies resigns from party after fraud and misconduct claims
But questions remain for CCHQ as its investigation didn’t look at payments from staff used to pay ‘bad people’ & ruled campaign fund used to pay medical bills was not in its remit
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Revealed: China spy suspect is parliamentary aide Chris Cash
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The other part of the contract, worth a bit under £100m, was for 150m Type IIR masks. These have been delivered but are awaiting further testing before being used. In fact, the
@GoodLawProject
(GLP) has found several cases unusual PPE suppliers' products haven't been used yet.
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8/8 Labour intend to raise the case in the Commons tomorrow. Shadow housing secretary
@SteveReedMP
said “it deals yet another hammer blow to the integrity of the planning system”. Jenrick and Westminster city council say the normal planning process was followed.
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Benton said that after meeting the fake company he became concerned that the role discussed was not within parliamentary rules and he contacted the Commons authorities to clarify the rules.
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Breaking..Scott Benton suspended from the Commons for 35 days. Will face recall petition and likely by-election. Follows Times undercover investigation earlier this year
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Later the counterparty was switched to Ayanda, something Mills and Horlick say was always intended. Ayanda say they always said their masks has earloops and govt ok'd them when the contract was signed.
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Mark Menzies has relinquished the whip pending the outcome of this investigation. Follows this Times story tonight. Questions will no doubt continue about why Tories didn’t take action earlier, they’ve known about this for 3 1/2 months
Revealed: Tory MP allegedly demanded campaign cash to pay ‘bad people’
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Read the story which led to today’s recommendation for Scott Benton to be suspended from parliament for 35 days - Exposed: How Tory MP offered to lobby for gambling investors
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6/ There were 4 people on the committee, 3 Conservatives and 1 Labour. The 3 Tories voted to ignored the planning officer's recommendation and allow the development. The Labour councillor opposed it.
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7/ She says she was unaware that it was Jenrick's house and said this revelation raised concerns about why her fellow councillors had approved the scheme.
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Drug company fined £100m after hiking the price of a thyroid drug from 16p to £9.22 per tablet. Was exposed five years ago by a Times investigation Thread follows on how they did it: (1/11)
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Revealed: Tobacco firms have bankrolled scientific papers playing down the risks of children vaping as part of a secretive lobbying campaign to boost e-cigarette sales and try to block public health measures aimed at protecting young people
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5/ This time, however, a Tory councillor, Steve Summers (who lives on the same square as the Jenricks) asked a planning committee to make the decision instead. This is "unusual" in cases where no-one has objected to an application.
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2/ Jenrick and his wife bought the house in late 2013 and then made two planning applications to build a first-floor extension. They were refused (in Jan and April 2014) because the house is in a conservation area.
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Drugs firm boss banned from trade over NHS price fixing << follows Times drug pricing investigation which began 4 years ago
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New from competition regulator - Drug company Concordia has provisionally been found guilty of abusing a dominant market position after the price of liothyronine soared. Cost to NHS rose from £600k a year to £34m.
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4/ A Westminster Council planning officer again said it would damage the appearance of the building and the character of a conservation area. She said it should be refused.
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Drug company exposed by The Times for price hiking faces paying £175 million+ back to taxpayers after landmark tribunal decision. Fine of £84 million and gov expected to take legal action to recoup c.£92m in damages. 3 other cases are with the tribunal 1/3
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3/ In August 2014, two months after Jenrick became a Tory MP, they applied again. The application was slightly taller than the April attempt and similar in design to the January application.
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My story today: Drugs firm was prepared to destroy stocks of life-saving cancer medicine in pursuit of price rises
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'Sleaze, campaign funds and a 3am phonecall: Another Westminster scandal'.. enjoyed talking to
@TheNewsAgents
about this
@thetimes
story
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This price-hiking model was adopted by other companies and affected dozens of NHS drugs. You can read much more about the whole sorry tale and the wider story of how financiers took over the pharma industry in my book - Sick Money - which is out now (end)
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New on the scandal of the government wasting £150m+ in unusable face masks. A leaked govt doc suggests govt overpaid by around £50m for masks from Ayanda Capital compared to prices paid to other suppliers. More:
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Drug firms given record £260 million fines for inflating prices following Times investigation - hydrocortisone rose from 70p to £88 a packet costing NHS hundreds of millions
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'Direct access' to ministers, tabling questions, leaking a confidential policy document: How Tory MP offered to lobby for gambling investors.
Watch on YouTube here:
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The Betting and Gaming Council has quietly removed a video Scott Benton recorded extolling the benefits of betting shops from their 'political engagement' page. Follows last week's Times story . Still up on YouTube for posterity
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I’ve been investigating the drug industry and the pricing of medicines for more than five years now and if you’re interested in how we got here I’ve got a book out in October with a lot more on AMCo and the wider industry. You can preorder here (11/11)
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Leadsom was a minister from April 2014, earning a salary of £98,740. So unclear why employment income is only £77k
Andrea Leadsom has released her tax return but only for 2014/15 (May released four years)
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@cnnbrk
That's a photo of police in London arresting a man outside the Houses of Parliament last week
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New: Mirror reporting that Standards Commissioner investigation will recommend suspension of more than 10 days for Scott Benton, and therefore v likely to be a by-election in his Blackpool South seat. Follows Times undercover investigation:
Exclusive: Tories face ANOTHER nightmare by-election as Red Wall MP faces chop over sleaze row
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Tories don’t appear to be planning to refer the allegations against Menzies to Lancashire police but say they will be happy to provide information if helpful
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Jenrick will release Westferry docs which would come under Freedom of Information Act as well as additional "discussions and correspondence". Coincidentally, my FOI on this was due back today
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Well yesterday the CMA published a 400 page decision notice which includes extracts from a bunch of internal documents obtained during their investigation. They lift the lid on how brazen execs at Advanz were about this price-hiking business model (2/13)
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The docs show that execs thought they could fly "below the radar" because the NHS and DHSC had limited resources and were focused on expensive new medicines (3/13)
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Pfizer plotted price hike with two UK firms - epilepsy drug cost NHS an extra £50m in a single year
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Contact tracers claim the system is “very obviously not ready” as lockdown restrictions are relaxed today. One had three shifts in the last four days and wasn’t given a single person to call
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UK competition regulator has just announced three new investigations into drug pricing. Concordia International among those involved
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Staff fulfilling online orders at the retailer’s warehouse in Lancashire label themselves “slaves” and have complained of racism, sexual harassment, gruelling targets, inadequate training and ill-fitting safety equipment
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Pressure on Jenrick continues as Westferry planning row makes the Mail splash. Jenrick first made this admission in court documents as revealed by my colleague
@LouisaClarence
last month
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Lancashire Police reviewing information about Mark Menzies allegations after Labour wrote to the force. Follows this Times scoop on Wednesday:
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Scott Benton appears on the list of standards commissioner investigations but it is under the old code (ie. pre-March 1) so it looks like a separate probe to the Times allegations. Relates to the use of his parliamentary email address
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And if you're interested in the whole sorry saga of drug companies getting rich by exploiting the NHS + the wider decades-long transformation of lifesaving meds into nothing more than financial assets to be mined for £££, do consider my book Sick Money 3/3
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The harsh conditions have led to workers collapsing in the aisles, with an ambulance called to the site once a month on average. You can read our full report here
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Emails show how drug company discussed destroying life-saving cancer meds and celebrated huge price rises. More:
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Our reporter walked up to 13 miles per shift in a sweltering warehouse, more than three times the average amount the company has previously claimed staff cover. Nighttime temperatures peaked at 32C at a time when the outside temperature was 19C
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Tom’s account of his time undercover is here:
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Inside the Boohoo warehouse where workers call themselves slaves: video of our investigation into working conditions
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The business model was simple. No need for expensive R&D. Instead find old, niche drugs which no-one else was making in the UK. They then wanted to jack up the price - often through a series of smaller increases to avoid unwanted attention (4/13)
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Appeal panel found no evidence of report being leaked to press and concluded that Benton's arguments were "misconceived or erroneous." Benton is believed to be planning to stand as an independent in the by-election
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The lack of other suppliers meant that didn't apply here. Liothyronine cost less than £4 a packet in 2007. It would reach a peak of £250 in 2016. As it began to rise in price executives boasted that there was no impact on prescriptions. Patients didn't have an alternative (7/13)
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New drugs story in today's paper >> Pfizer went ahead with price-hiking plan despite staff warning of ethical and patient safety concerns
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Excited to get my hands on the first paperback copies of Sick Money with a striking new cover design (and subtitle)! Out next Thursday
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It's US and Canadian publication day for SICK MONEY, an investigative dive into 'Pharma Bros', dirty tricks and the drug pricing crisis. Get it here - and your local bookstore!
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Times investigation.. Leading mental health chain Priory criticised for failing to keep patients safe + we've obtained leaked letter sent by NHS England demanding rapid improvements or threatening action with
@KatieTarrant_
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Liothyronine is a synthetic hormone taken by patients with an underactive thyroid. It is a second line treatment but thousands of patients view it as life changing - allowing them to work, drive and live a normal life without facing severe fatigue or brain fog. (6/11)
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Vijay Patel's company increased the price of a packet of anti-depressants from £5.71 to £154. Their price rises for old medicines have cost the NHS £50 million in the last few years. His reward? An OBE...
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Cinven sold the new merged company on for £2.3 billion in 2015 but prices continued to rise. That was the same year liothyronine was put on an NHS 'drop list' because it was now so expensive. The cost to the NHS rose from £600k a year to £30m (12/13)
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The NHS has dropped plans to stop prescribing liothyronine, a treatment for hypothyroidism which has undergone huge prices
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You can read more about hydrocortisone, price hiking and other pharma abuses in my new book - out on October
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They outlined this in a 2007 internal memo called 'Branded Pharmaceuticals UK Business Plan'. it laid out how dropping a brand name could circumvent these controls. The NHS allows free pricing for unbranded generic drugs because competition normally keeps them cheap (6/13)
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Very pleased to have made it onto the Paul Foot Award shortlist
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In wake of £84million fine for thyroid drug price hiking
@DrPeteTaylor
has set up a petition calling for more funding for thyroid research and patients:
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