Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Cabinet sub-committee on health, as is the case with all Cabinet sub-committees, has a very wide remit and there is no reason why it could not include in its remit an examination of the cost of medicines. However, one of the reasons some of these medicines cost so much is that they are produced for very rare diseases. There may be only a few dozen or a few hundred patients in the country or in all of Europe and America with a particular disease and the cost of developing medicines for rare diseases, known as orphan drugs, is very high for that reason. Any bespoke preparation of a product or service will cost more than a product for the mass population, say 20,000 or 30,000 people.

One thing that could be done, which would not be possible for a small country such as Ireland but which might be possible on a transcontinental or international level, is to have greater investment by governments in research and development, with governments producing and owning the patent for these medicines.

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