John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to use the opportunity to the best of my ability.

I have a number of specific questions. When the HSE is considering an orphan drug for a rare disease, is it treated separately or is it treated in the same way as every other drug? If the HSE does not put orphan drugs into a separate box, I think it should. What do the officials from the HSE think should happen to speed up the availability and make more orphan drugs available in Ireland? Do we need legislation to allow the HSE to do that? Do we need to amend the Health (Pricing and Supply of Medical Goods) Act 2013? If the 2013 Act is interpreted differently as I said in my opening comments, would that be enough to change where we are at to move us from the 36% of drugs available up to somewhere north of 50%, so that we are not in or out with the various arguments we have?

The previous time Professor Barry from the NCPE was before the joint committee, he had nine staff available to him, which was recognised as not being near enough and he had indicated that he could use 18 staff. Has the number of staff increased? I hope there has been an increase in staff but if there has not been, I will go back and try to improve that statistic.

My final question relates to biosimilar products. This is a question for the HSE officials, Mr. Shaun Flanagan and Mr. John Hennessy. I am aware of the biosimilars that could make significant savings to the drugs bill if they were used or even if the price of the original products was reduced to the same price as the biosimilars or if there was some sort of a competitive environment. That would make saving that would make providing money for Kuvan, Translarna and Respreeza a great deal easier. I ask that we pursue this vigorously because the savings are there for us as we speak, without having to do anything other than having physicians prescribing the biosimilars. When that happens, as it happened with the generics, the original product comes down in price.