Sir, – I write in response to “Patients wait over 1,000 days for access to high-tech drugs TDs told” (News, December 7th), on the meeting in Leinster House between the Irish Pharmaceutical Health Care Association (IPHA) and members of the Oireachtas. The IPHA said that the Irish public are being denied life-saving medications due to the slow pace of the approval process for new drugs in Ireland. However, this meeting also heard that the absence of any price controls is a key factor in Ireland’s inability to fund this medication and that drugs should be priced in a transparent manner, and based on the expense of bringing the drug to market. – Yours, etc,
Dr KIERAN HARKIN,
Access to Medicines Ireland,
Dublin 2.