Sir, – The new agreement reached between the Government and the major pharmaceutical companies, represented by the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA), on the supply and pricing of medicines, is a bad joke at the expense of both the Irish consumer and taxpayer ("Government reaches deal with pharma firms on drug prices", July 20th).
The most significant effects of this agreement are to protect the existing pricing structure that has maintained Irish medicine prices as among the most expensive in the EU, and to disincentivise the use of biosimilars or “generics” in respect of medicines whose exclusive patents have expired.
It is not the cost of “branded” (or patent-protected medicines) that is the real scandal in Irish medicine-pricing. These are merely at the higher-end of the EU scale. The real scandal relates to the pricing of “generics”.
To put this in context, The vast bulk of everyday prescribed medicines – representing the preponderance of the national spend on medicines – are those in respect of which “generic” equivalents are available. In other EU countries, these “generics” are not just 30 per cent cheaper than the original “branded” variety, but usually a fraction of the “branded” price.
For example, the prices of commonly prescribed medicines like pravastatin, amlodipine, and esomeprazole (“Nexium”) in French “high street” pharmacies are between one half and one quarter of the Irish price. The price differential is even greater in countries like Spain and Portugal.
The effect of this agreement between the Minister for Health Simon Harris and the IPHA, like the one that preceded it, will be to minimise the incentive for “generic substitution” and to ensure medicine prices to the Irish consumer and taxpayer remain among the highest in the EU.
What the Minister has achieved is not a major saving in the price of medicines for Irish consumers and taxpayers, but the continuation of the exact opposite.
I had understood when we joined the EU that EU competition law would protect consumers from agreements of this sort between government and industry.
Is anyone in the European Commission listening? – Yours, etc,
PETER MURRAY,
Carrigaline,
Co Cork.