The Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has set a June deadline for pharmaceutical companies to lower the prices they charge the state.
The Minister said that drug manufacturers will have to agree to cut their prices by the month of June, or else he will resort to using existing legislation to force a reduction.
Currently, the state spends near €2bn per year on medicines.
The Government has been criticised for not doing more to get better prices from pharma multi-nationals, especially when many of these companies operate manufacturing facilities in the country.