Mr. Philip Watt:

We also have to deal with a particular mindset. When we are trying to fight for rare disease drugs we are told that they are so expensive that we are denying others services. It is not only that patients are having to live with their disease but they are also being blamed from taking resources from somewhere else. We would counter that it is not a zero-sum game. The Government has been criticised for years for spending far too much on drugs which are much cheaper in other European countries, and that we do not have enough investment into biosimilar and generic drugs which would come at a fraction of the cost of many of these drugs. We still have a long way to go to reducing our drugs cost and using at least some of that money on innovative and new technologies such as those for rare diseases. There is also a lack of recognition that the cost of developing a rare disease drug is recognised internationally as far greater than one for a more common disease. I am not defending drug companies trying to exploit countries but that is an economic reality. If there is only a small number of patients from which a company can make back its money, and it costs $1 billion to develop a drug, there is no doubt that the drug will be expensive.