Patients should have faster access to newly developed drugs and medicines and the Government is prepared to adopt new approaches but prices charged will have to represent value for money, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill is expected to tell the pharmaceutical industry on Wednesday.
It comes as drug companies say delays in the State approving new medicines mean Irish patients are waiting close to two years for access to drugs already approved by the European Medicines Agency, even though the Government’s guidelines say the process should only take around 7½ months.
The Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (Ipha), which represents drug developers, says that even when companies propose the price that is eventually agreed upon for a medicine, it takes, on average, five months before it becomes available to patients.
However, in an address to the Ipha annual conference, the Minister is expected to argue that more than 40 per cent of high-profile new products have not been put forward by the industry for patient use in the Republic.
It is understood she will say that the industry’s data indicate that the Republic has received active applications for only 57 per cent of the medicines assessed in the European pharma lobby group Efpia’s Waiting to Access Innovative Therapies indicator and that this gap needs to be shortened.
With negotiations on a new agreement for the pricing and supply of medicines intensifying, she is expected to urge the industry to consider ways to ensure access, affordability and availability of medicines for patients.
The State spends about €3.3 billion a year on medicines, accounting for just over 13 per cent of overall health spending.
Ms Carroll MacNeill is expected to say that the Government is open to any proposals the industry advances and will promise to replicate its spirit of innovation. But the Minister is expected to stress that spending by the State on drugs and medicines must deliver value for the taxpayer.
Ipha chief executive Oliver O’Connor said the State now has “an opportunity, together, to effectively reform the system and meet the goal of faster and fairer access to new medicines for patients in Ireland ... A year can make a big difference in a patient’s life.”
Under current legislation, the Health Service Executive is required to decide whether or not to pay for new medicines and decide on applications for reimbursement of new medicines within 180 days. A 2021 agreement with the industry indicates that the HSE has a further 45 days to “implement” agreed funding.
But an Ipha survey covering 93 per cent of all its members' medicines that have secured approval for reimbursement between 2022 and 2024 shows that it is taking, on average, 617 days – close to three times as long – to get new medicines to Irish patients, of which 426 days are down to the State.
Delays for cancer medicines and those treating rare conditions are taking even longer, it says
Ipha says its figures take account of periods when the clock stops on the approvals process because the State needs more information to inform its decision.
