Ireland is one of slowest countries in Europe for medical reimbursment, it's 'a bit of a travesty for patients'

Tall and spare, Alex Wilkes gives no hint of a man who played rugby league and union in his youth but then, as a Wigan man, he could hardly have escaped it. Wilkes is well travelled since those early years growing up close to a hill from which, on a clear day, he says you could see Ireland across the Irish Sea. He arrived in Dublin to manage AstraZeneca's Irish commercial operations direct from a second stint in Switzerland. Before that, he had worked in senior commercial positions with rivals Roche, Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Germany's Merck over the last…