State should put a cap on funding after Orkambi cost

THE anger of cystic fibrosis campaigners at the economist who said that State funding of Orkambi is diverting funds away from other deserving patients may be understandable, but it’s also misplaced.

Orkambi, which is said to cost about €160,000 per patient per year, represents an enormous outlay, and the money will have to come from somewhere. Much as CF campaigners would like to pretend otherwise, the harsh reality is that it will probably be provided at the expense of some other vital arm of the health service.

But while no-one begrudges cystic fibrosis sufferers a breakthrough drug to improve their quality of life, they do resent being held to ransom by drug manufacturers.

For after Orkambi, there will be another ‘miracle drug’ with an even more eye-watering price tag and a mass campaign of desperately ill people and their supporters who expect to have it.

Where will it end? No country can indefinitely pay stratospheric drug prices, no matter how many lives are saved. If a year’s supply of Orkambi costs five times the average salary of an Irish worker, then the next pioneering drug might cost ten times that.

Governments will have to get together to push for price caps or start investing in drug R and D so that they are not totally vulnerable to soaring prices.

Healthcare is not a commodity like a car. It’s time Governments realised that because new wonder drugs have consequences for life and death, a free market policy is no longer tenable.