Ahead of 2013 federal election, trade group makes plea for fixing Australia's PBS listing system

Pharma trade group Medicines Australia today (May 27) launched its 2013 Federal Election document, calling on all sides of politics to fix deficiencies in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and restore confidence in the process that makes new medicines available to patients. Federal elections are due to take place September 14.

Launching Medicines Now: the 2013 Federal Election, Medicines Australia chief executive Brendan Shaw said patients were already missing out on some new medicines because the PBS listing system had become too difficult.

“The PBS listing process needs to be reviewed and fixed urgently because patients are missing out on new medicines,” Dr Shaw said. “We have now reached the point where companies are simply unable to make some new treatments available on the PBS. We have treatments for melanoma and rare diseases where the sponsoring companies have abandoned plans to list on the PBS and other treatments for prostate cancer, melanoma and stroke prevention that have been recommended for listing but are still awaiting funding. It’s absurd that melanoma treatments that are freely available in countries like Poland and Belgium are not available in Australia, the melanoma capital of the world. We have a medicine for Pompe’s disease [which] is publicly funded by governments in Greece, Cyprus and Italy, but is not publicly funded in Australia.