Results 6,261-6,280 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank our guests for their time. It is a hugely important issue. The combination of some miraculous scientific breakthroughs with the eye-watering associated costs is going to pose some big questions for us as a society. We seem to be getting to the stage where, with enough money, one can cure or treat a phenomenally wide and growing range of chronic diseases and conditions, so we are...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: One of the areas that Access to Medicines Ireland seems to be examining is what strikes me as a governmental equivalent to what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did. When it tried to encourage large pharma to develop medicines for developing countries, there was not an economic model and, therefore, the foundation offered a prize to which a firm could gain access, which tipped it over...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: Is the EU taking any steps in that regard?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: Are there any EU prize funds? There are many ways it can be done, one of which is that we just do it ourselves. We can publicly fund universities, research centres or whatever, or create economic incentives for the private sector to do the kind of work we want it to do rather than it just chasing profit all the time, or both. Does the EU offer any such incentives?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: On the other approach, namely, publicly funded research of drugs, perhaps all the drugs that are discussed at the committee are produced by private pharmaceutical firms. Are there examples of breakthrough or orphan drugs that have come from public research institutes in, say, the past five years?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: My question was whether there are examples. We know about Spinraza and Orkambi and we can list other private drugs. Are there examples of drugs that have come through public institutions and are being deployed as such, that is, not drugs which have been nobbled by private interests?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: I am asking a different question. Have any of these drugs come from publicly owned institutions, such as universities or public research centres?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: Dr. Harkin has referred to public private partnership but I am referring to public only. I am trying to understand whether it is just the reality that the private companies must carry out the work and we must put in legal and financial ways of securing the intellectual property, IP, or is there publicly-owned research infrastructure globally that can do it? Are we reliant on the private...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: The research and development was done by publicly employed scientists.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: Is there a recommendation on what the IP protection of 20 years should be reduced to?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: It sounds as though we are largely reliant on the private sector to do the work.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: I acknowledge that Dr. Harkin was able to refer to one public private partnership but it sounds as though the private sector will do the vast majority of the work in this regard. If the IP is removed, which would remove the ability of companies for a time-limited period to charge a healthy margin, is there another model, given that the companies will still need to follow the money? Is there...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: Let us say, in the case of a global pharmaceutical company, that a decision is made at a governmental or EU level to target lung cancer. While I have not seen the figures for a while, ten years ago the research and development cost for a typical blockbuster drug was approximately $5 billion, although I imagine it has risen considerably. Is the proposal that EU funds would be created whereby...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: Let us say that it is somewhere between $1 billion and $5 billion. Is the idea that we would block-grant the pharmaceutical companies?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Medicines Strategy: Discussion (6 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the witnesses.

National Children's Hospital: Motion [Private Members] (12 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: We were told in 2016 that the national children's hospital would cost €650 million. We were told in 2017 that the total cost would be €980 million, an increase of approximately 50%. We were told in 2018 the cost would, in fact, be €1.4 billion, another 50% increase in costs. There is also an additional €300 million required for IT and opening the hospital. This...

National Children's Hospital: Motion [Private Members] (12 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: At 309 beds and a cost of €270 million the English people will be paying one quarter the amount per bed. I ask the Deputies to leave the Chamber if they want to have a chat. We are trying to have a debate.

National Children's Hospital: Motion [Private Members] (12 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: At 309 beds and €270 million, the Irish people will pay four times more per bed than was paid in England just a few years ago. By any measure this is an outrageous overspend. It is an insult to every taxpayer and citizen. It is an insult to every doctor and nurse working in outdated facilities or understaffed teams. It is an insult to the more than 500,000 people waiting to see a...

National Children's Hospital: Motion [Private Members] (12 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: That is why I called for a report.

National Children's Hospital: Motion [Private Members] (12 Mar 2019)

Stephen Donnelly: Deputy Danny Healy-Rae is one to talk.