Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy very much for the question. I will start by acknowledging his ongoing advocacy in terms of new medicines, including rare diseases, but obviously, this is not one of those cases. As the Deputy is aware, the HSE has statutory responsibility for decisions on the pricing and reimbursement of medicines. However, it is incumbent upon all of us, as public representatives, to engage with patients and clinicians and to understand where the real opportunities are for future medicines.

Veoza is a very new development in the treatment of moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms associated with menopause. As the Deputy will be aware, the Government is prioritising women's healthcare, including through the provision of hospital-based services for menopause. He will be aware that critically, in terms of accessing new medicines for this year, we have ring-fenced €30 million with €20 million of this from new development funding and €10 million from savings from the existing substantial medicines budget of €3.2 billion.

Veoza was authorised by the European Medicines Agency in October, which was just in the last few months. The company that markets it submitted its application for reimbursement to the HSE on 8 February. The company therefore just put in its application in the last two to three weeks. It is now at the first stage of the process, which is a rapid review by the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, NCPE. My officials and I will obviously be following this assessment with great interest, both in terms of the benefit this drug can provide and because it fits with our push for women's healthcare and our ambitions to have the best possible women's healthcare right across the country.

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