Committee backs more non-prescription medicines

More medicines should be made available over-the-counter than by prescription-only and pharmacists should consider publicly displaying dispensing fees and mark-up fees to help patients make informed choices, according to a new report.

And instead of benchmarking drug prices against a ‘basket’ of nine countries which the State does when calculating an ‘average’ price, it should expand to take in 15 countries to ensure that lower cost countries are included.

These are among the recommendations of the Oireachtas Health Committee Report on the Cost of Prescription Drugs in Ireland, designed to reduce the long-term cost of pharmaceutical drugs, and increase the use of generic drugs.

In considering whether the State and individual patients pay a fair price for prescription drugs compared to their European counterparts, committee chair Jerry Buttimer said in “some cases” the price was fair but that in others, there was “a need to get better value for money”.

The discrepancy between drug prices here and abroad was previously highlighted in a 2013 report by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) which found Ireland had the highest prices for nine out of 13 commonly-used generic medicines compared to other European countries.

For in-patent drugs, Ireland was among the three most expensive European countries surveyed for 10 leading products.

The health committee report has made a series of recommendations to reduce the cost of prescription drugs including the publication of baseline price comparisons for all EU member states on an annual basis.

Reacting to the report, the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association said attention now needed to turn to the speed of access to new medicines for Irish patients.