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Cancer drug giant Roche bemoans slow access to Irish patients

Swiss pharma group says Ireland among slowest countries in Europe to pay for new medicines as it reports €116m profit

Roche said Ireland is among the slowest countries in Europe to give patients access to its new cancer therapies

Gordon Deegan
Wed Dec 20 2023 - 16:18

Ireland is one of the slowest countries in Europe to grant patients access to new medicines, the Irish business of Swiss cancer specialist Roche has said.

The comments came as results just filed show that pretax profit at Roche Products (Ireland) Ltd fell 5 per cent last year to €4.53 million.

Directors of the Irish business said patients in Ireland are not getting the same speed of access to innovative and life changing medicines as their counterparts in other European countries.

They pointed to the group’s Phesgo medication for HER2 positive breast cancer which had been expected to be reimbursed and available to patients here in 2022 but did not gain reimbursement until the start of 2023.

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The directors say that Ireland is now one of the slowest countries in Europe to reimburse new medicines: in the past, they say, it had been one of the fastest.

The speed of reimbursement “continues to be a concern for the directors”, the report said, arguing that “actives steps must be made to speed up the reimbursement process to avoid Ireland lagging behind other European countries”.

The company said it was encouraged by the Minister for Health’s support of a recent Mazars report that examined the governance arrangements around the HSE’s drug reimbursement process and its recommendations.

Pretax profits at the Roche unit dipped despite revenues increasing by 11 per cent from €105 million to €116.3 million.

Despite the concerns over access to new drugs, the company said it had delivered “a solid level of sales growth” in 2022. Roche said that Ocrevus for the treatment of multiple sclerosis and Hemlibra for the treatment of haemophilia both drove that growth.

“Strong growth was also shown with the breast cancer medicines, Perjeta and Kadcyla, while Tecentriq and Alecensa, both lung cancer medicines, also performed well”.

Profit after tax came to €3.69 million and the company declared a dividend of €7 million, having paid a dividend of €4.5 million in 2021.

The Irish company also acts as a regional centre for the implementation of global clinical trial programmes.

Staff costs fell by 20 per cent to €10.85 million from €13.55 million to €10.85 million though the previous year’s figures included severance costs of €938,000 as the company cut numbers to 86 from 90.

Directors pay increased by 45 per cent on aggregate to €1.32 million, comprising salary and bonuses of €866,000 and benefits in kind of €460,000

At the end of 2022, the firm had shareholder funds of €21.42 million that included accumulated profits of €19.45 million.

Gordon Deegan

Gordon Deegan

Gordon Deegan is a contributor to The Irish Times

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