Pharmacy Daily | Is Australia better off?

PATIENTS would be worse off if Australia adopted a New Zealandstyle access to medicines policy, according to Medicines Australia Chief Executive Dr Brendan Shaw. Responding to a report on pharmaceutical prices published this week by the Grattan Institute (PD yest) Shaw said proposals to cap spending on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme would limit patient's access to medicines. “If you want a how-to guide for turning your health system into that a third-word country, this report would be it,” Shaw said. “Capping the PBS would kill consumer access to new therapies as the experience in New Zealand proves. “It undermines the fundamental principal of universal and affordable access to medicines that underpins the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and has done for 60 years,” he added. Shaw also went on to say that “Anyone who wants to emulate the New Zealand model of medicines policy should remember that New Zealanders have access to less than half the number of new medicines that Australians have and that New Zealand is stone motherless last in the OECD access to medicines rankings”. “So much so that when New Zealanders can't access a variety of new medicines in their country they come over here,” he said. MEANWHILE the Generic Medicines Industry Association also got in on the act, calling the report’s concerns that the Australian Government is paying more than NZ for some generic medicines “unfounded”. “These concerns are unfounded as the market-based price disclosure policy ensures that the government benefits from the competitive generic medicines sector in Australia,” GMiA said. Speaking in the wake of the report, CEO of GMiA Kate Lynch said that reforms to the PBS introduced in 2010 are currently delivering savings to the public of $1.9 billion over four years. “The PBS is already subject to complex policy reforms,” Lynch said. “For the sake of patients and ensuring a secure and consistent chain of supply, we need to get those reforms bedded down first before embarking on any more policy change,” she added.

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