Northern Ireland Protocol: UUP leader Doug Beattie says medicines must be removed from the agreement

He was speaking after pharmaceutical firm Teva highlighted problems related to the supply of medicines to NI due to the arrangement.

Mr Beattie, said: “Medicines should never have been included in the Protocol in the first place and the EU`s proposals were not a long-term solution. We said that from the very start and as part of our Assembly election manifesto, stated that they should be ‘removed from the scope of the Protocol.”

“Whilst some politicians claimed that medicines had been sorted, the opposite is the case. Patients in Northern Ireland could be at risk of losing out from equitable access to new and innovative drugs that become available for patients across the rest of the UK.”

He noted that in October Steve Aiken MLA asked the Health Minister Robin Swann "for an update on the ongoing divergence issues related to medicines and the Northern Ireland Protocol".

As part of his response, the minister replied: "There remain issues associated with the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol for medicines that risk divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain’ and ‘in relation to Centrally Authorised Products, differences in regulatory approval timelines and authorisation conditions between Northern Ireland and Great Britain are increasing in frequency and complexity. This is placing at risk my Department’s long standing policy link with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), for the managed entry of new medicines in Northern Ireland."

Mr Beattie added that “the best solution remains that medicines should be removed from the scope of the Protocol completely”.