This week, the country’s only clinical research group for cancer revealed that Irish patients would become the first in the world to gain access to a cutting-edge drug for lung cancer that is so new its name cannot be revealed.

A charity based organisation of Irish doctors, ICORG (the All-Ireland Cooperative Oncology Research Group), whose members include 95pc of the country’s cancer specialists, will begin giving the drug to patients of the disease in the coming months as part of the first clinical trials on a specific form of lung cancer in the world.

The drug, known as a HDAC inhibitor, has shown dramatic results in treating a rare type of lymphoma but recent studies have found it is also powerful in attacking lung cancer cells.