Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 3 July 2018
288. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Health the detail of the recent announcement that Ireland will be joining with EU partners to address the issue of the cost of critical orphan drugs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28816/18]
View answerThe challenge of securing affordable access to innovate medicines is not unique to Ireland. Over the past two years, I and officials have been engaging with a number of voluntary EU forums including the Roundtable meetings with EU Health Ministers and the pharmaceutical industry, High Level Pharmaceutical Policy Meetings and the Valletta Technical Committee in an effort to identifying solutions to issues of medicine pricing, sustainability and supply.
On the 22 June 2018, I signed the Beneluxa Initiative on Pharmaceutical Policy to work with Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. This Agreement is in line with my objective to work with other European countries to identify workable solutions, in an increasingly challenging environment, to secure timely access for patients to new medicines in an affordable and sustainable way.
The Beneluxa collaboration was established in 2015, with a view to taking a collective approach to pharmaceutical procurement and evaluation. This Initiative seeks to enhance patients' access to high quality and affordable treatments, improve the payers' position in the market through joint negotiations, increase transparency on pricing between the collaborating countries, share policy expertise and focus on knowledge building.
This Initiative is well established, with clear goals and a pragmatic approach to delivering on its objectives. Four areas of collaboration has been identified: horizon scanning, health technology assessment, information sharing and policy exchange and joint price negotiations.
The Beneluxa Initiative on Pharmaceutical Policy will have an important role to play in securing faster access to innovative medicines and provide important platforms in which to strengthen the policy mix and deliver on the shared objective of securing access to high cost, innovative treatments at affordable prices. The patient is at the centre of this collaborative international approach.
Members of the Beneluxa Initiative will work closely together to identify pragmatic solutions to the challenges which we all now face with medicine pricing, sustainability and supply.
