Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will ask the Department to revert to the Deputy with a detailed note on the full process involved in the health technology assessments because there are various parts to them. What I can say is that for this coming year there are going to be some important improvements. One is that we are going to have a medicines tracker for the first time. This is something that Rare Diseases Ireland, patient groups and the industry have asked for. They say that at a minimum we need to know where the medicine is in the process. There is going to be more transparency as well around the criteria that are used. For example, when we are considering orphan drugs, there are additional criteria used because they do not fit into the normal cost-benefit criteria that are used for the more mainstream drugs. Second, I have allocated funding for a sizeable increase in the teams working in these areas, which is going to help speed up the process. Third, we must have new medicines funding as well, and that is why that €30 million for new medicines is going to be very valuable for this year.

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