Biomedical R&D should be directed proportionally to areas of greatest need.

There is an innovation gap in areas such as: diseases that predominantly affect neglected populations, rare diseases and development of new antibiotics.

R&D must be a shared global responsibility.

Governments must negotiate global agreements on the coordination, financing and development of health technologies to complement existing innovation models.

Where public funds are used in pharmaceutical research and development this must be reflected in the pharmaceutical prices.

Public funding agencies such as the Health Research Board should ensure patenting and licensing policies which promote public health. For example, the use of non-exclusive licenses, intellectual property rights donations and licensing to public sector patent pools.

We support international co-operation and en bloc negotiations of drug prices.

Ireland must join with other countries in order to more effectively negotiate for cheaper medicines. We support joining the BENELUXA initiative.

R&D should be transparent.

The costs of R&D, production, marketing, and distribution, as well as the end prices of health technologies must be clear to consumers and governments.

R&D should abide by the principle of delinkage:

The cost of R&D should not be linked to the price of the end product. We must not rely on high prices to finance and incentivise true innovation. New incentives for R&D should be offered - examples include grants, prizes and advance market commitments.

The Irish Government should have a low threshold for issuing Compulsory Licenses in order to procure medicines for its citizens.

Compulsory licensing is when a government authorises a party other than the patent owner to produce the patented product or process, without the patent owner's consent.