The State’s drugs budget could more than double to €10bn if a treatment known as the ‘King Kong’ of weight-loss drugs is approved for everyone eligible, a doctors’ conference has heard.
Some “difficult decisions” are needed about the rising costs of all new drugs as soon as next year, clinical director of the National Centre of Pharmacoeconomics Professor Michael Barry warned.
The drugs budget has been rising for the last decade, Prof Barry said.
“I think our drugs budget is at €4bn. I got it wrong in the past, I thought it would be €4bn by 2027, it won’t, it’s here today,” he said.
He agreed with an estimate of one million people being eligible for these drugs, a figure raised by obesity expert Professor Donal O’Shea.
This is based on them having a BMI of over 30.
“That would in effect add €6bn to the drugs budget, which would then take it to €10m,” he said.
“It’s unaffordable, it’s not going to happen, and I don’t see it happening in my opinion,” Prof Barry said.
The HSE is “very close” to budget expansion limits, he told doctors at the Irish Medical Organisation’s AGM in Killarney.
Two drugs — Mounjaro and Wegovy — are under assessment for weight-loss and other benefits.
However, he raised concerns about the potential impacts of increased spending.
“I anticipate that the assessment will be complete by the end of the year or the start of next year by the latest, then that is when the decision-making will need to be made,” he said.
The question is ‘do we fund them?’ or ‘do we fund them only for a sub-group of people who could benefit from them?’ so it depends, they will be big decisions.
Prof Barry also hit out at claims by pharma companies the HSE is to blame for delays bringing new cancer drugs to patients.
“Do [the companies] launch the product in Ireland first? Of course they don’t. They go where the money is, the big markets — Germany, France, Italy, Spain,” he said.
“The HSE has nothing to do with this. The launching strategy of the pharmaceutical industry is up to themselves, that’s why we’ve delays in access to medicines in this country.”
He urged: “All I’m asking for is an honest debate about this. It’s always portrayed, in any article I read, there’s a delay of up to two years and it’s the HSE’s fault.
“What I said today, clearly is it’s not. I have no problem defending this — these are high-cost drugs and we should be asking about the value for money before we pay tax-payers’ money.
“I think people need to be honest, and acknowledge a significant amount of the delay is down to the company themselves.”