LOS ANGELES — Kyle Schwarber, Weston Wilson and Bryce Harper homered, and the Philadelphia Phillies clinched their second straight NL East title with a wild 6-5 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday night.

It was the earliest division clinch in franchise history, two days sooner than the 2011 club that clinched on Sept. 17. The Phillies got it done in Game 151, second fastest in club history behind the 2011 Phillies who did it in Game 150.

The Phillies also notched a 90-win season for the third straight year for only the third time in franchise history.

Since the New York Mets were idle Monday, the Phillies needed a win to clinch the division. They blew leads of 1-0 and 4-3 before getting past the NL West-leading Dodgers for their ninth win in 11 games.

Since the July trade deadline, the Phillies are 29-14. They’ve held it together despite injuries to key players.

The Phillies lost right-hander Zack Wheeler when he went on the injured list a month ago because of a blood clot in his right shoulder. The club’s pitching depth has allowed it to absorb the loss because of its six-man rotation. Wheeler was 10-5 with a 2.71 ERA in 24 starts when he was sidelined.

Shortstop Trea Turner (right hamstring strain) and third baseman Alec Bohm (left shoulder inflammation) are both on the IL. Manager Rob Thomson said Bohm could return later this week at Arizona, and Turner could be back in time for the final homestand of the regular season.

The win made Thomson only the third manager in franchise history to win consecutive division titles, joining Charlie Manuel (2007-11) and Danny Ozark (1976-79). He’s only the fourth manager in major league history to reach the postseason in each of the first four full seasons of a managerial career. Among the other three is Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.

When it comes to the drugs industry, Britain is suffering withdrawal symptoms.

This year, three of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies – Merck, AstraZeneca, and Eli Lilly – have pulled or paused UK investments worth almost £2bn, diagnosing that market conditions, specifically the NHS drugs pricing regime, make the UK a “contagion risk”.

The issue will be highlighted this week as Donald Trump begins his state visit, with executives called to give evidence to a parliamentary select committee on Tuesday, along with science minister Lord Vallance, a veteran of the pandemic, when government worked closely with pharmaceutical companies to speed up vaccine development.

How has this come about?

The UK pharmaceutical industry is one of those caught in the crossfire of Trump’s trade war.

In the trade deal agreed by the president and Sir Keir Starmer in May, the prime minister committed to “improve the overall environment for pharmaceutical companies in the United Kingdom”.

Four months later, those companies – under pressure from Trump to charge US consumers the same as those in Europe, and to invest in US production and research – say the opposite is the case.

They argue the British market is becoming unviable to pharmaceutical investors, at a cost to patients, jobs, and the economy.

Data from the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries bear this out; R&D investment growth has fallen below the global average and foreign inward investment has declined almost 60% since 2020.

Why the corporate backlash?

To understand why an industry long regarded as a domestic strength has turned against the UK, it is necessary to understand the complexities of medicines pricing.

The NHS is one of the largest “single buyers” of medicines in the world, a position that has long given it clout when it comes to negotiating prices. In the last two decades, however, strict conditions on what drugs are approved for use, and at what price, have brought down the price of the medicines but eroded the value of the UK to the companies that provide them.

Simply put, the industry believes the NHS has been getting too good a deal for too long and argues the terms are no longer sustainable.

In the last decade, the proportion of the NHS budget spent on medicines has fallen to just 9%, below the EU average of 13%. Meanwhile, the amount of revenue returned by companies to the government under complex “clawback” arrangements has jumped to more than 23%, more than three times the EU average.

Under these complex rules, a form of price control that offers a uniform discount to the health service, manufacturers return revenue equal to the value of any overspend by the NHS on its total medicines budget.

The figure has risen rapidly in the UK in the last five years as the NHS has exceeded its medicines budget faster than it has risen. This year it was supposed to be 15%, already double the EU average, but has already risen to 23.5%.

Can this all be resolved?

The industry is demanding a commitment to return to single figures by the end of this parliament. Emergency talks with the health department broke up in the summer, and it is unclear when they will resume.

It also wants the threshold at which new drugs are admitted to the NHS marketplace, currently £20,000-£30,000 and unchanged since 1999, increased. Had it risen in line with inflation, it would be £40,000-£60,000 today.

As a consequence of these downward pressures on price, the industry says the number of new and innovative medicines offered to patients has fallen, with only 37% of available drugs accessed by the NHS, compared to 90% in Germany.

Why so much is in the gift of the chancellor

Paying higher prices to hugely profitable pharmaceutical giants was not part of Labour’s electoral promises for the NHS, and Health Secretary Wes Streeting says he is committed to getting the best deal for patients, but the UK discount may no longer be sustainable.

The issue also highlights a tension between the government’s desire for economic growth and greater efficiency in its key public service.

As one executive put it, as the UK accounts for only 2.5% of the global medicines market, which meant for a long time the lower margins doing business in Britain could be swallowed. With Trump demanding price parity for the US, which accounts for 40%, that is no longer the case.

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Life sciences are at the heart of the government’s new industrial strategy and the UK still has much to commend it, with world-leading research and skills and a track record of spinning biotech innovation into the private sector. But the withdrawal of big pharma investment tells a different story.

Johan Kahlstrom, country president of Novartis UK and Ireland, said: “The UK is fast becoming uninvestable for life sciences companies.

“High clawback taxes that take almost a quarter of revenues, combined with outdated cost-effectiveness thresholds that haven’t changed in over 25 years, are eroding the UK’s position as a global life sciences hub.”

Resolving the pricing row will require compromise and money, with the health secretary’s room for manoeuvre ultimately resting on the Treasury, and the balance between losing jobs and investment from a growth industry, and a drugs budget the NHS has long taken for granted.

Donald Trump has announced he’s suing The New York Times, just days after he threatened to do so over its reporting into his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president said he had “the Great Honor of bringing a $15bn Defamation and Libel Lawsuit” against “one of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the History of our Country”.

Mr Trump’s lengthy post – made late on Monday – is focused on his belief the outlet is bias towards the Democrats, citing the endorsement of Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.

It has “been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long”, he added.

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The lawsuit – which has been brought in Florida – comes after Mr Trump raised the prospect of suing the newspaper last week for publishing articles about alleged notes he had sent Epstein.

He dismissed the reporting as false.

A lewd birthday message Trump allegedly sent to the convicted sex offender for his 50th birthday in 2003 was published by the US Congress days later.

The pages are contained in files from the estate of the deceased billionaire paedophile, handed over to a Congressional committee.

The collection of birthday tributes include a hand-drawing of a woman’s body, signed “Donald”. They also contain a picture of Epstein holding an outsized cheque, signed by “DJTRUMP”.

Mr Trump has maintained the note wasn’t written by him, claiming the handwriting and signature do not match his own.

The “birthday book” also included notes from former British minister Peter Mandelson, who has been sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US over revelations about his relationship with Epstein.

Mr Trump has repeatedly denied any impropriety involving Epstein, whom he once counted as a friend.

Responding to his initial threat to sue, a spokeswoman for The New York Times said last week: “Our journalists reported the facts, provided the visual evidence and printed the president’s denial. It’s all there for the American people to see and to make up their own minds about.

“We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favour and stand up for journalists’ First Amendment right to ask questions on behalf of the American people.”