Pharmacy Daily | PBS risk to new medicines

THERE’S a “grave risk” that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme will be unable to continue supporting the development of new medicines in the future, according to Medicines Australia ceo Dr Brendan Shaw. Speaking at the Future of the PBS conference in Sydney, Shaw said the pharmaceutical industry is increasingly concerned that pricing decisions made by govrernments around the world - including Australia - will “constrain the future development of new medicines”. He said that the drive to cut costs and get medicines at cheap prices could risk limiting the supply of new medicines for future generations. The long lead time for medicine development meant that pricin policies directly affect companies’ commercial decisions about investing in R&D. “The cost of developing new medicines is increasing globally, but the price of the old medicines against which governments compare these new medicines is falling,” he said. “The result is an alarming disconnect between the reimbursement policies adopted by countries like Australia and the commercial realities of developing new medicines”. Shaw cited the case of new antibiotics which in many cases have become commercially unviable - and despite this about seven thousand Australians a year die from drug-resistant bacterial infections such as Golden Staph. “It has become so hard for pharmaceutical companies to develop new antibiotics that the European Union is now exploring ways of encouraging the commercialisation of more antibiotics in the future,” he added. Shaw urged the government to encourage the industry to continue to develop new medicines “that will contribute to our children and grandchildren leading longer, healthier lives”.

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