How Irish reimbursement works
Once a company applies for reimbursement, the HSE Corporate Pharmaceutical Unit (CPU) commissions the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics (NCPE). Every medicine goes through a rapid review first. NCPE then either recommends a reimbursement decision to the HSE or asks for a full health technology assessment.
A full HTA is usually triggered by high cost relative to comparators, the budget impact, or questions about comparative efficacy or value for money. It requires a pre-submission meeting and a dossier with a clinical evidence section, a cost-effectiveness model and a budget impact analysis. The HSE makes the final decision, and the CPU leads the commercial negotiation.
Read more in our insight: Rapid review or full HTA?
- ApplicationHSE Corporate Pharmaceutical UnitCommissions the NCPE
- About 4 weeksNCPE rapid reviewEvery medicine starts here
- If neededFull HTAAbout 18 weeks, plus a clock-stop of about five weeks
- AdviceNCPE recommendation to the HSEOn reimbursement, after the rapid review or full HTA
- DecisionHSE decisionThe HSE makes the final decision; the CPU leads the commercial negotiation
What we deliver
- Rapid review submissions
- Pre-submission meeting preparation
- Full HTA dossiers: clinical evidence, cost-effectiveness and budget impact
- Adaptation of global or UK models to the Irish reference case
- Irish costing, using public reimbursement and HSE sources
- Responses to NCPE queries during the clock-stop
- Resubmissions with revised evidence or price
- Pricing scenarios and commercial offer analysis
Built to Irish methods
Irish submissions follow HIQA's National Guidelines for the Economic Evaluation of Health Technologies in Ireland (version 2.0, March 2025) and its budget impact guidelines. The reference case takes the perspective of the publicly funded health and social care system, discounts costs and outcomes at 4% a year, and measures benefit in QALYs. A model built for NICE needs real changes before it is ready for Ireland. See model adaptation.
Why Evidaxia
We have supported NCPE submissions, resubmissions and commercial offer preparation, and we have built Irish models in Excel/VBA and Python. We work as an extension of your team, from the first rapid review to the final commercial offer.