March 30 (Reuters) - Eli Lilly ( LLY ) wants the UK to

regularly raise NHS drug prices and phase out a

multi-billion-pound rebate scheme if it is to resume investment,

its international businesses president Patrik Jonsson told the

Financial Times.

In an interview published on Monday, Jonsson said he was in

talks with UK ministers and was "optimistic" about reaching an

agreement by the summer for the country to pay more for its

medicines.

The discussions also cover "innovative" pricing plans that

would link payments for anti-obesity drugs to whether patients

become well-enough to return to work, Jonsson said.

Medicine prices in the UK had been "far too low for far too

long, and even with the current threshold, we are not back to

where we started more than 20 years ago," he added.

"Everyone deserves access to the best and most innovative

treatments, and our changes to medicine pricing will make sure

thousands of NHS patients gain faster access to new treatments,"

the British Department of Health and Social Care said.

"We remain fully committed to delivering the UK-US

Pharmaceutical Agreement, including the changes to the NICE

cost-effectiveness threshold."

Lilly raised the UK list price of its weight-loss treatment

Mounjaro by up to 170% in August 2025, saying it had initially

set prices "significantly below" those in its three other major

European markets to prevent delays in NHS access.