Consultation on New National Life Sciences Strategy
The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland (AmCham Ireland) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment’s development of a new Life Sciences Strategy. The pharmaceutical and MedTech sectors and the life sciences ecosystem form a core element of Ireland’s economic competitiveness. These sectors are of strategic importance for Ireland’s future, not just in terms of product development, but also in terms of innovation and supporting the two-way, US-Ireland trade and investment relationship.
It is of the utmost importance that any strategy delivers a co-ordinated roadmap to strengthen Ireland’s position as a global leader in pharma, MedTech and life sciences. Crucial to achieving this will be the need for Government and Departmental collaboration on all actions arising from the Strategy, as well as delivery on the muchneeded steps to radically improve infrastructure development and address skill gaps. This strategy must be more than a Departmental initiative—it must be a shared national mission.
Success demands coordinated action from health, education, enterprise, finance, and digital agencies working as an agile, aligned team. Further, the Strategy must also align with emerging EU policies and global trends, ensuring that Ireland remains competitive and agile in an evolving healthcare and technology landscape.
A primary objective of the Strategy must be to embed innovation and R&D excellence at the core of Ireland’s life sciences sector. It will be essential that this includes the strengthening of basic and applied research capacity, fostering collaborative R&D partnerships between industry, academia and Government, and ensuring that Ireland is viewed, globally, as a leading location for early-stage research, clinical trials, and
regulatory innovation.
In recent years, Ireland has at times taken a more passive stance. Cases in point being during negotiations on the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive and the revision of the General Pharmaceutical Legislation, despite the significant implications of these policies for the Irish ecosystem.
In addition to ensuring that the Strategy is sufficiently agile to respond to geopolitical shifts and evolving EU policy, it should also be designed to position Ireland as a leader within the EU in shaping global policy developments that affect the pharmaceutical and MedTech sector. Ireland is uniquely placed to do so, given the depth of its transatlantic relationships and the scale of US industry investment here.
Read AmCham's full submission here