More research needed to keep pharmaceutical industry in Ireland

The pharmaceutical industry in Ireland has to move up the value chain if Ireland is to remain a key location for the pharmaceutical industry into the future, the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA) Annual Meeting heard today.

The Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment Micheál Martin said that the country needed to attract a new type of high end manufacturing concentrating on research and development, process development and drug discovery.

He said that the Government was working to refine the current R&D tax credit so that it could better help to assist in making Ireland a centre renowned for its research excellence.

IPHA President John McLaughlin said that over the last 20 years Ireland had become a location of choice for the international research based pharmaceutical industry.

Fourteen of the top fifteen pharmaceutical companies worldwide now have manufacturing operations in Ireland and the country is the largest net exporter of pharmaceuticals in the world.

He said that there were many competing centres around the globe for pharmaceutical investment and the challenge was to move up the value chain in the years ahead.

A vibrant, research-led pharmaceutical industry was needed to help create the knowledge-based economy Ireland needs, he said.

Professor Des Fitzgerald, Chairman of the Health Research Board, identified clinical research as "a real opportunity for Ireland".

IPHA President John McLaughlin said: "We need to standardise the ethics committee approval system and enhance its predictability. We need to have full compliance with the existing legislation and we need sufficient funding to enable the employment of dedicated health researchers throughout the health services."