Naming the price: Ireland's pharmaceutical companies

The decision to force pharma companies to disclose their corporate identities was aimed at improving transparency, but has become a logistical nightmare

For some pharma firms, compliance would require every leaflet in every medicine pack to be updated Inset: Mary Mitchell O'Connor Picture: Maura Hickey

What’s in a name? For some of the country’s biggest pharmaceutical employers, tens of millions of euro – and even the continued supply of vital medicines – are at stake.

As part of sweeping changes to update Irish company law in 2014, much of which was designed to eliminate very old red tape, it was decided that all firms would have to publicly disclose their full corporate identity.

This means that their headed ...