{"id":140586,"date":"2025-11-15T03:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T03:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/140586\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T03:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T03:58:10","slug":"up-to-80000-people-in-ireland-may-qualify-for-state-funded-weight-loss-injections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/140586\/","title":{"rendered":"Up to 80,000 people in Ireland may qualify for State-funded weight-loss injections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around 80,000 of the 1.2m people classified as obese in Ireland will likely avail of State-funded weight-loss injections if the drugs are approved for medical card holders or under the HSE’s Drug Payment Scheme.<\/p>\n

The HSE’s national clinical lead for obesity, Professor Donal O\u2019Shea, says a health technology assessment (HTA)\u2014 evaluating the medical, social, ethical, and economic implications\u00a0\u2014 of the weight-loss wonder-drug Mounjaro is to be published in the coming weeks, which is the \u201cprecursor to making a decision about who will get it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Currently, similar drugs are provided under public schemes for people with diabetes, but several manufacturers have been granted permission by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for them to be used for weight loss treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The companies are seeking HSE reimbursement that would potentially make the drugs free for medical card holders or capped at \u20ac80 per month under the Drug Payment Scheme.<\/p>\n

Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk applied for HSE reimbursement for its Wegovy injection, for adults and adolescents, in March 2025.<\/p>\n

As the drug is not yet covered by the public scheme for weight-loss patients, Wegovy is listed, for the first three dosages, at \u20ac240 per month on one pharmacy website, increasing to \u20ac320 and \u20ac355 for higher dosages.<\/p>\n

\n Eli Lilly<\/a> has applied for HSE reimbursement for Mounjaro for both weight-loss treatment and diabetes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With a valid prescription, several Irish pharmacies currently list Mounjaro\u2019s starting price at \u20ac275 per month. This rises to as much as \u20ac595 per month for the highest required dose.<\/p>\n

\"EliEli Lilly has applied for HSE reimbursement for Mounjaro for both weight-loss treatment and diabetes. Picture: Niall Carson\/PA Wire<\/p>\n

Health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the application for Mounjaro under the reimbursement scheme could be approved by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Prof O\u2019Shea told the Irish Examiner that a HTA on Mounjaro will likely limit who can initially get the injections due to the huge costs involved for the HSE of providing the treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m concerned about the lengths people are having to go to access what are effective, safe treatments,\u201d Prof O\u2019Shea said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe HSE is about to publish its HTA on Mounjaro. This is the precursor to making a decision about who will get it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s likely to come in somewhere quite along the lines of its availability in the UK, which is for people with a BMI over 35, plus complications.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will have it available to maybe 80,000 people in Ireland. The bottom line is you have 25% of the population living with obesity. That’s 1.2m people. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey simply can’t begin by letting it be open to everybody, just on a cost basis. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to make sure we start using it in, initially, the high-risk group and then widen out its use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prof O’Shea added that he \u201cdesperately\u201d wants the treatments available, but added that it has to be \u201cbrought in at a point where it won\u2019t break you financially\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 80,000 of the 1.2m people classified as obese in Ireland will likely avail of State-funded weight-loss injections…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2121,61,60,351,43,4370],"class_list":["post-140586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-womens-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mens-health","tag-news","tag-ozempic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}