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Growth hormone

Somatropin prescribing across the NHS.

Somatropin has the narrowest prescriber base on this site: 37,000 items a year at £558 an item, written by fewer than 1,700 practices, nearly all of it paediatric endocrinology delivered through shared care. Tiny volume, £21m at list price, and a market that moves on specialist decisions, not primary-care ones.

Scorecard, last 12 months
Items
37k
dispensed in the last 12 months
Spend
£20.4m
at NIC, last 12 months
Year on year
-3.1% -3.1%
vs the 12 months before
Latest month
July 2026
most recent NHSBSA release
Key facts · plain English

The NHS in England dispensed 36,719 prescription items of Somatropin in the 12 months to July 2026, across primary care and hospitals.

Spending on Somatropin over those 12 months was £20.4m at net ingredient cost, the list price of what was dispensed before any discounts.

Items were down 3.1% on the previous 12 months.

36% of Somatropin volume moved through primary care and 64% through hospital pharmacies.

Somatropin is the largest of 9 chemical substances in Hypothalamic & anterior pituitary hormone & antioestrogens (BNF 6.5.1), by items dispensed.

Among Integrated Care Boards, NHS Greater Manchester ICB dispensed the highest volume of Somatropin.

Source: NHS Business Services Authority open data (English Prescribing Data and SCMD), OGL v3.0. Items count prescriptions dispensed, not patients treated.

National trend · since 2020
Somatropin, England: monthly items and spend
Items per month (teal) and spend, £ (orange)
items £ 2020-11 2023-09 2026-07 1 May 2025 · Hospital framework awarded29 Apr 2024 · Supply shortage
Source: NHSBSA English Prescribing Data (OGL v3.0).

Diamond markers show events around this period: NICE decisions, safety alerts, supply notices, Drug Tariff moves and price concessions, new suppliers in dm+d and framework awards. Hover a marker for the date and type. The evidence behind each one, with the source quote and link, sits behind Apply.

MonthItemsSpend (NIC)
July 2026 3,319 £1.9m
June 2026 3,072 £1.7m
May 2026 2,907 £1.6m
April 2026 3,048 £1.7m
March 2026 3,150 £1.8m
February 2026 2,774 £1.6m
January 2026 3,108 £1.7m
December 2025 3,179 £1.8m
November 2025 2,937 £1.6m
October 2025 3,187 £1.8m
September 2025 3,172 £1.8m
August 2025 2,866 £1.6m

The same series as the chart, most recent month first. The full monthly history, as CSV, sits behind Apply.

Cost per item · price erosion
Somatropin, England: cost per item
Actual cost per item, primary care (£)
£579.51 £493.14 2020-11 2023-09 2026-07
Source: NHSBSA English Prescribing Data (OGL v3.0).
Market share

95.8% of its class.

Somatropin is the largest of 9 chemical substances in Hypothalamic & anterior pituitary hormone & antioestrogens (BNF 6.5.1), by items dispensed in July 2026. The full class league, who's gaining, and the month-by-month share movement sit behind Apply.

See the full class picture →

Seasonality
Average items by calendar month, indexed to the year (100 = average)
120 100 80 JFMAMJJASOND

Average items by calendar month across the full history, indexed to the annual mean.

Who supplies it · dm+d register

5 suppliers hold a live somatropin listing, across 24 packs.

Ferring Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Merck Serono Ltd, Novo Nordisk Ltd, Pfizer Ltd, Sandoz Ltd. Every pack, its GTIN and published list price, and each week's changes are in the full report.

A listing in the NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices means a product may be supplied. It says nothing about sales or market share, and the list price is the reimbursement price, not what any buyer pays. Contains information from dm+d 10.1.0, published by the NHS Business Services Authority under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Where it's prescribed · England

Somatropin across all 33 ICBs.

Every Integrated Care Board in England, shaded by how much somatropin its GPs dispense per head of population. Hover an ICB to name it. The ranked figures for all 33 ICBs, and the drill-down to practice level, are in the full report.

NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICBNHS Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICBNHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICBNHS Lincolnshire ICBNHS Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICBNHS Coventry and Warwickshire ICBNHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICBNHS North East London ICBNHS South East London ICBNHS South West London ICBNHS Kent and Medway ICBNHS Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly ICBNHS Devon ICBNHS Somerset ICBNHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICBNHS Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICBNHS Dorset ICBNHS Gloucestershire ICBNHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICBNHS North East and North Cumbria ICBNHS Humber and North Yorkshire ICBNHS West Yorkshire ICBNHS Birmingham and Solihull ICBNHS Greater Manchester ICBNHS Derby and Derbyshire ICBNHS Northamptonshire ICBNHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICBNHS South Yorkshire ICBNHS Black Country ICBNHS Central East ICBNHS Essex ICBNHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICBNHS Norfolk and Suffolk ICBNHS Surrey and Sussex ICBNHS Thames Valley ICBNHS West and North London ICB
Items per 1,000 registered patients, 12 months
FewerMore

Darker shading marks where Somatropin is dispensed most per head of population. Exact figures for every ICB, and the drill-down to practice level, are in the full report.

Data: NHSBSA English Prescribing Data (OGL v3.0). Boundaries: ONS Open Geography portal, ICBs April 2026, contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.

Zoomed out to the 7 NHS regions.

The same 12 months rolled up to NHS England's seven regions, ranked by intensity.

North WestMidlandsMidlandsMidlandsMidlandsMidlandsMidlandsLondonLondonLondonSouth EastSouth WestSouth WestSouth WestSouth WestSouth WestSouth WestSouth WestNorth WestNorth East and YorkshireNorth East and YorkshireNorth East and YorkshireMidlandsNorth WestMidlandsMidlandsMidlandsNorth East and YorkshireMidlandsEast of EnglandEast of EnglandSouth EastEast of EnglandSouth EastSouth EastLondon
Dispensed items, 12 months
North West
South East
North East and Yorkshire
East of England
London
Midlands
South West
Data: NHSBSA English Prescribing Data (OGL v3.0). Regions: ONS Open Geography portal, NHS England regions April 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.
Top 3 previews

The teaser view.

Three rows each. The full 33-ICB view, every prescribing organisation, every strength and the hospital picture sit below the fold, behind Apply.

Top ICBs by volume
  1. 1 NHS Greater Manchester ICB 5k
  2. 2 NHS West Yorkshire ICB 4k
  3. 3 NHS Central East ICB 3k
  4. – + 30 more. See the full 33-ICB table. See all →
Fastest-growing ICBs (YoY)
  1. 1 NHS Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly ICB +14.8%
  2. 2 NHS Norfolk and Suffolk ICB +5.9%
  3. 3 NHS South Yorkshire ICB +5.2%
  4. – + 30 more. See every ICB, ranked. See all →
Top formulations
  1. 1 Omnitrope SurePal 10 10mg/1.5ml inj cartridges 12%
  2. 2 Omnitrope SurePal 15 15mg/1.5ml inj cartridges 11%
  3. 3 Omnitrope SurePal 5 5mg/1.5ml inj cartridges 10%
  4. – + 3 more. See every strength and pack. See all →
Primary vs secondary care
Primary 36% Hospital 64%

Split of items across NHSBSA primary care and SCMD hospital dispensing.

Deprivation · IMD 2019

Prescribing by deprivation.

Items per 1,000 registered patients by IMD decile: 1 = most deprived, 10 = least
0.7 0 12345678910

Items per 1,000 registered patients by deprivation decile (1 = most deprived), practice deprivation weighted by where each practice's patients live. Read the shape rather than the absolute level: the most and least deprived deciles cover far fewer practices, and age structure drives much of the gradient.

Beyond England

The devolved nations.

NationItems · 12 monthsData to
England 37k July 2026
Scotland 7k June 2026
Northern Ireland 2k May 2026
Wales 2k April 2026

Each nation publishes its own community prescribing data, with different coding and list rules, so read these per-nation rather than as an exact UK total. Sources: NHSBSA (England), Public Health Scotland, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership, OpenDataNI. Used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Honesty strip

What open data won't tell you about somatropin.

List price and actual price diverge sharply for growth hormone, where competitive supply arrangements are the norm and none of them are public.

Read exactly what the data covers →

Common questions

Asked and answered.

Is somatropin prescribing rising or falling in the NHS?

Falling. England dispensed 36,719 items of Somatropin in the 12 months to July 2026, down 3.1% on the previous 12 months. Items count prescriptions dispensed, not patients treated, so the change can reflect dose and duration shifts as well as patient numbers.

How much does the NHS spend on somatropin?

£20.4m at net ingredient cost in the 12 months to July 2026. Net ingredient cost is the list price of the medicine before discounts and rebates; the NHS's final bill, especially for hospital medicines, is usually lower.

Where in England is somatropin prescribed most?

By raw volume, NHS Greater Manchester ICB dispensed the most somatropin in the last 12 months. Raw volume favours the biggest populations; the map on this page shades every ICB by items per head to correct for that.

How up to date is this data?

This page runs to July 2026, the most recent NHSBSA release. Prescribing data publishes roughly six to eight weeks in arrears, and DoseTrend refreshes within 48 hours of each monthly release.

Locked · Applicants only

The full breakdown.

Every ICB, every prescribing organisation, every strength, the hospital view with what trusts paid and who holds each framework line, Signals with their sources, and the monthly briefing PDF. The rows below are placeholders; the real tables sit behind the application.

Locked · Applicants only

See the full picture for Somatropin.

All 36 ICBs, prescribing organisations, formulation splits, Signals, and the hospital view with what trusts paid. Plus who won the NHS contract: 23 somatropin framework lines, 4 suppliers. £1,500 a month per molecule, price published, applications reviewed by a human within one working day.

No card details to apply. About one applicant in ten gets told the open data can't answer their question, before paying anything.

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