Predatory US health firms believe the British market will be easier to crack after Brexit , documents reveal.

American pharmaceutical companies are desperate to hike prices and charge the National Health Service more for life-saving drugs.

The powerful industry has been lobbying US trade negotiators to prise open the UK healthcare sector as part of a post-Brexit deal with the UK.

A document written by the US Chamber of Commerce and Coalition of Services Industries last month exposes that they are waiting to dive in post-Brexit, believing one-on-one negotiations away from the European Union leaves the UK vulnerable.

The 24-page document, headed Services Priorities for a Future US-UK Trade Agreement, makes a worrying comparison between future trade talks and the three-year Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations between the US and EU, which collapsed in 2016.

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The document reads: “Negotiations between the United States and the UK may encounter some of the difficulties that arose during TTIP

“Concerns about potential impacts on Britain’s National Health Service are being aired. It should prove easier to overcome these challenges with the UK as an individual negotiating partner.”

The report also confirms the “United States will seek rules that prohibit, across all services sectors, discrimination against foreign services suppliers and restrictions on the number of services suppliers in the market”.

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Shadow Health Secretary ­Jonathan Ashworth said: “Today’s revelations are yet more evidence that US big pharma companies are lining up to cash-in on a toxic Johnson-Trump deal.

“These mega corporations want us to pay more for medicine and the proposed US-UK deal could draw £500million a week from our NHS.”

Experts say the annual NHS drug bill of £18billion will rocket by £27billion to £45billion – or £500million a week extra – if it has to pay US drug prices.

Yet already the NHS, which deals with more than a million patients every 36 hours, overspent by £4.3billion in 2017/18, with 240 NHS trusts owing the Department of Health £7.4billion in historical loans.

Donald Trump wouldn't take the NHS if it was 'handed on a silver platter'

In London yesterday for a summit to mark 70 years of NATO, US President Donald Trump claimed he did not want to prey on our treasured NHS. “We wouldn’t want to if you handed it to us on a platter,” he said.

But speaking on ITV’s This Morning, Labour leader Mr Corbyn rubbished this claim. He said: “Trump himself has said everything is on the table, including our NHS.”

Lib Dem Chuka Umunna added: “If Boris Johnson wins a majority he’ll be so desperate for a trade deal with Trump that he’ll become his poodle.”

Mr Corbyn has also said he planned to confront the President at last night’s royal reception.

The Labour leader told BBC Radio 2 he would take Mr Trump to task and say: “I hope you’ll understand how precious our National Health Service is and in any future trade relationship with the USA none of our public services are on the table.”

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But also yesterday a top Tory admitted it will be for US pharmaceutical giants to decide if they hike the price of drugs after Brexit. Dominic Raab said “the Americans will take their decisions” .

Our revelations come after Labour last week uncovered a 451-page dossier Mr Corbyn claimed was “proof” the health service is on the table in trade talks – which the Prime Minister rejected as “nonsense”.

It was also revealed yesterday that US health firms have boasted of “planting seeds” in the NHS.

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Open Democracy has uncovered comments in 2016 made by Larry Renfro, then chief executive of Optum, the healthcare services arm of America’s biggest private health insurer, UnitedHealth Group.

Mr Renfro, who is now Optum’s managing partner, told investors three years ago: “We’ve been planting seeds. We are getting stronger with the Minister of Health, as well as the Secretary of Health.”