At the Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL) Alliance Annual Conference 2026, President of the Haematology Society of Ireland Dr Amjad Hayat spoke with the Medical Independent (MI) about his thoughts on the event, the state of play with haematology in Ireland, and other relevant topics.
He began by lauding the selection of speakers and range of topics for the conference, which he described as “amazing”.
“I am from an era when we used to have one meeting per year about haematology, but in general, groups were working independently, and all the physicians were working independently,” he said. “Great credit should go to Ruth [Prof Ruth Clifford], Patrick [Prof Patrick Thornton], and Carmel [Dr Carmel Waldron] for organising this on a national basis.
“With the way treatments have actually changed, we do need this for our support and theirs – we need groups like this that can work on behalf of both the patients and
the physicians.”
Asked about the most pressing challenges in CLL care at the moment in Ireland, whether they be staffing, funding, diagnostics, or other considerations, Dr Hayat said: “All of the above.”
“But predominantly, it would be access to medication,” he told MI.
“Historically, 30 years ago for example, if any drug was available, you could write it [prescription] in Ireland.
“Now, what has happened is – for good reason – the [National Cancer Control Programme] has a drug approval system, but it is too slow, it is too restrictive, and frankly, the evidence that they look for is not consistent with the rest of the world. Our patients don’t get the treatment that the majority of the developed world would typically be getting.”
It is also important to acknowledge the role of industry in helping to facilitate important meetings of this kind, Dr Hayat commented. “Things have changed,” he said. “Historically, when you find a compound that you needed to work, you needed phase III trials, so by the time you were finished, you had spent one to two billion, so the drug cost was extremely expensive.
“The buzzwords nowadays are ‘unmet need’ and ‘accelerated approval’, which the FDA [in the US] actually uses. So, if you have a successful drug, or a potential drug, you show some evidence that it works and it’s safe, and then you take it to an accelerated programme to keep the costs down,” said Dr Hayat. “None of the universities, for example, have the money to make that kind of international effort, so industry is very important – without them, we wouldn’t have most of our drugs… the two [medicine and industry] have to work in a symbiotic relationship.”
The conference featured physicians of all ages and levels of experience. What might entice young doctors to pursue haematology as a specialty? “My sister was actually a haematopathologist and I used to read her books and that’s how I was attracted to haematology,” he told MI. “[In haematology] you see the patient, you go into the lab, you do all the tests, and then put all of that information together that you actually took through yourself, and use it to diagnose the patient. Haematology has always been at the cutting-edge of science; it is an amazing field. Also remember that unlike many other fields, you are following that patient for the rest of their lives, so you, the patient, and their family actually become one unit.
“That can be taxing mentally, but it’s also a wonderful feeling to have that, and to know that you have done something really good for that patient.”
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