The Government?is committed to providing timely access to new and innovative medicines to all patients.
The State has made considerable investments in new medicines in recent years, with annual expenditure on medicines now approximately €4 billion. This represents almost one euro of every eight spent by the State on healthcare.
Supported by 158 million euros of funding in Budgets 2021-2025, the State delivered access to 250 new medicines. Budget 2026 allocated 217 million euro of additional investment in medicines, including 30 million euro in funding for new medicines. This has, as of mid-June 2026, delivered access to 26 new medicines.
The Year 1 cost of a new drug comes from the allocation for new medicines, but it should be noted that once these medicines are approved for reimbursement the full cost of providing them can reach multiples of this initial cost as their uptake increases.
The sustainability of State medicine expenditure must be protected. A central contributor to this is the Framework Agreements on the Supply and Pricing of Medicines (FASPMs) agreed between State and pharmaceutical industry since the 1970s. New Agreements were signed in March 2026 for the next four years. These Agreements provide stability to the medicines reimbursement market for the State and for Industry, thus providing certainty and stability to the supply and pricing of medicines in Ireland.
These Agreements include a commitment to a stepwise programme of change to achieve reimbursement decisions within the statutory 180-day period by Q1, 2029. As part of structured process towards achieving a 180-day timeline for reimbursement decisions by Q1 2029, an end-to-end review of the pricing and reimbursement system, will be conducted, starting this year.
Achieving this shared goal, requires the pharmaceutical industry and the State to work together, through timely assessment, reasonable pricing and fully prepared health technology assessment dossiers being submitted by a company to the HSE.
Ireland continues to collaborate with European colleagues to support efforts to enhance medicines access, availability, and affordability in Europe.
