![\"Sinn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/more-efficient-way-of-of-assessing-new-drugs-needed-says-tnaiste.jpg\")
Opposition leader Mary Lou McDonald raised the issue of Skyclarys, which is used to treat Friedreich\u2019s Ataxia, in the D\u00e1il (Liam McBurney\/PA)<\/p>\nA row over the length of time it is taking for a drug to treat a rare neurological condition to be approved shows the need for a review of how medicines are assessed in Ireland, the T\u00e1naiste has said.<\/p>\n
Opposition leader Mary Lou McDonald raised the issue of Skyclarys, which is used to treat Friedreich\u2019s Ataxia, in the D\u00e1il during Leaders\u2019 Questions on Thursday.<\/p>\n
At a meeting on Tuesday, the HSE Drugs Group did not recommend the drug for reimbursement and instead referred it to an expert committee comprising of consultants and patient representatives.<\/p>\n
Opposition leader Mary Lou McDonald raised the issue of Skyclarys, which is used to treat Friedreich\u2019s Ataxia, in the D\u00e1il (Liam McBurney\/PA)<\/p>\n
McDonald described this as \u201cone committee passing the buck to another committee, more delay, more time wasting\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said Skyclarys was approved by the EU Commission in 2024 and is available in France, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Spain and Czechia, as well as the UK, Canada and the US.<\/p>\n
The condition of many of those with Friedreich\u2019s Ataxia is deteriorating quickly, she told Simon Harris and said, \u201cdecisions have to be taken, and time is running out. You can fix this. You can bring the pace and urgency that\u2019s necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said she was \u201cbegging\u201d Harris to intervene.<\/p>\n
Responding, Harris said: \u201cIt\u2019s not a question that the Government, or indeed our representatives through the HSE or clinicians, have been in any way dilly-dallying on this.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the commercial proposal for Skyclarys\u2019 use in Ireland was received on May 27th, and the expert committee now has a four-week deadline to reach a decision.<\/p>\n
We do need to have a full root and branch review of how medicines are assessed in this country<\/p>\n
Simon Harris<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s mixed views on the science in relation to this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a number of European countries that have said no, there are some that have said yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rare diseases expert panel was set up to \u201cgive this every possible chance\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
However, he said, \u201cI take the point about timelines\u201d.<\/p>\n
Later, he said that sometimes delays \u201caren\u2019t on the side of the state\u201d.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cWe do need to have a full root and branch review of how medicines are assessed in this country\u201d.<\/p>\n
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill is \u201ccommitted to that\u201d, he said, as \u201cthere has to be a better way and a more efficient way of assessing drug applications more generally, and we can return to that on this specific issue\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last month Carroll MacNeill said an end-to-end review of the pricing and reimbursement system will be carried out, starting this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A row over the length of time it is taking for a drug to treat a rare neurological…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[103,61,60,371],"class_list":["post-552814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552814","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=552814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}