Health committee  Those decisions are never easy. Often, actually, when drugs for rare disorders come on the market, because of the small numbers of people, we really don't have enough information about those products to make good decisions. That's why we need ongoing studies once those drugs are

Health committee  No, they don't. First of all, let's be clear. Based on objective studies, only about one in 10 new drugs that are introduced in any given year make a substantial difference to the therapy that people get. Over half of the drugs that are introduced are actually what are sometimes

Health committee  You've hit upon an issue that people have been talking about for a long time: that the drug companies will not open up their books to reveal their R and D costs for new medications. There's a figure of $2.6 billion that's bandied around as being the cost of getting a new drug to

Health committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear. I'm giving this presentation not just on my behalf but on behalf of the other 10 people who signed the written brief. This presentation is going to concentrate on drugs for rare diseases, and I'm just going to go through the re