Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 21 November 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Evaluating Orphan Drugs: Discussion (Resumed)

9:00 am

Photo of Rose Conway WalshRose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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As Ms McGrath knows, in many of these cases, time is the one thing we do not have. I have significant issues with the cost because it is not negotiated. We are taking a headline cost and working out the cost-benefit analysis on that basis but we cannot hope to do so when the drug company is giving a cost expecting it to be negotiated, and rightly so - it would happen in any business negotiation - but it is not being negotiated by the HSE. How can we hope to have an outcome that would be positive in that situation?