Pfizer takes government to task over slow drugs payments

The company said it was 'increasingly concerned at the delays in securing reimbursement for innovative medicines, which is very challenging for the pharmaceutical industry and also for Pfizer'

Pfizer, the $216 billion pharmaceutical giant, wrote to Leo Varadkar in the weeks after his election as Taoiseach to castigate him over Ireland’s record as one of the “slowest in Europe” at paying its drug bill.

Pfizer told Varadkar in this and later letters that it was responsible for €2.2 billion in Irish economic output annually and employed 3,300 people in Ireland, before raising its concerns about prompt payment and other policy issues.