Pharmacy Daily | PBS can afford new meds

Medicines Australia (MA) has said there is no need for further PBS savings measures in the upcoming budget. The government should be looking at ways to improve the listing of new medicines to treat diseases such as diabetes and cancer instead, ceo Dr Brendan Shaw said. The 01 Apr prices as part of the expanded and accelerated price disclosure main cycle saw cuts to medicines such as docetaxel injection, the price of which has been cut by almost 90% (PD 17 Dec). Shaw said the April price cuts were estimated to save taxpayers $1.5b over the next four years, which would provide “ample scope” for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to fund new treatments as they became available. “There are many things about the health system that may keep health ministers awake at night, but the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is not one of them.” Consumers Health Forum spokesman Mark Metherell said that there was an estimated $500m more a year that could be gained by bringing Australian medicine prices into line with comparable countries such as the UK and New Zealand. “We would like to see why Australian consumers should not benefit from the global fall in pharmaceutical prices that other countries are seeing.” He said the CHF would like to see faster listing of new medicines as well, and both should be possible given the savings to the taxpayer generated by price disclosure.

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