GlaxoSmithKline Plc has agreed new-style flexible pricing deals with two European governments, allowing it to raise the price of some drugs once additional clinical data on their value is available.

Andrew Witty, the company's head of pharmaceuticals in Europe, said yesterday the novel pricing model - which also allows for price cuts if medicines fail to offer value - could be adopted by many other governments in future.

"We are exploring this idea with a whole raft of governments," he said in an interview on the fringes of a pharmaceuticals conference.

"It's something we have been working on for a while but it's just beginning to get some traction. We are getting a lot of positive signals from other governments."

He declined to name the countries or medicines involved for competitive reasons.

Several government, including France, have argued recently for a more flexible approach to valuing medicines, by rewarding truly innovative products with higher prices but cutting prices for those that are little different to existing drugs.

Mr Witty said the new model was designed to get away from the current practice of fixing the price of medicine at the time of launch, when the least information was known about its value.

Instead, the price could be amended, up or down, as data from so-called Phase IV, or post-launch, clinical studies became available.