Brenda Dooley, of AXIS Consulting. Picture: Bryan Meade

Axis Reimbursement, a Dublin-based healthcare consultancy, expects revenue to grow to €5 million this year.

The business, which also has offices in Galway and Manchester, was founded by Brenda Dooley in 2011. It has 20 permanent staff, plus a team of 10 contractors, and generated €3.3 million in revenue last year.

“We help patients get access to new innovative medicines by supporting pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies in demonstrating value for money. That’s a state requirement before they get reimbursed,” Dooley told the Business Post.

“This enables them to get the medicines onto state reimbursement schemes. Whether that’s in Ireland through the HSE or the NHS in the UK, we get the medicines formally reimbursed by creating value for money evidence.”

Company DetailsFounded by: Brenda Dooley in 2011Staff: 20Revenue: €3.3 million in 2025

This involves demonstrating clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness to justify a drug’s eligibility for reimbursement schemes.

Dooley has spent her entire working life in the health sector, first as a nurse before moving into the pharmaceutical industry. Across that experience, she developed the idea for Axis Reimbursement.

“I noticed that market access was becoming a particular aspect of decision-making in Ireland and was becoming more formalised. It was similar to what had happened in the UK a decade prior,” she said.

“Having done the job working in Pfizer as head of market access, I decided this was an opportunity to set up my own consultancy. The real problem was that there weren’t many providers of in-country expertise that would inform those submissions.”

Now 15 years on, the business has grown considerably since Dooley started as a one-woman operation.

“It has evolved a lot. In the early days, I was a sole trader and then it started to grow. It was still a small team up until 2018, then we started to really build. In many ways, Covid was good for us as we pivoted and could work hybrid and online. That allowed us to reach more international audiences,” she said.

“We’ve expanded since. Traditionally we were an Irish-focused company; we built ourselves into the leader in Ireland. Three years ago we expanded into the UK, where we have 6 per cent of the market share now.”

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Enterprise Ireland supports the business, and Dooley said the agency has been a major help to Axis Reimbursement.

“They have been tremendous. They’ve helped us with trade shows when we go overseas and now we’re starting the journey beyond the Irish and UK market. We started with the US in June and Enterprise Ireland gave us use of their offices and helped us with support over there,” Dooley said.

With international expansion driving the business forward, Dooley is confident for the future.

“We see Ireland very much as a gateway to Europe. When I focus on internationalisation and speak with pharmaceutical companies, I ask them to think about that and how we can facilitate that pathway.”

This Making it Work article was produced in partnership with Enterprise Ireland.