Australian Cabinet's PBS deferrals mean patients miss out

Australia’s federal Cabinet’s decision to defer the listing of new medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme means ordinary Australians are missing out on access to new medical treatments, the pharmaceutical trade group Medicines Australia has told a Senate inquiry into the Government’s administration of the PBS.

Medicines Australia’s submission to the inquiry said the Cabinet’s decision shows “the Australian government is moving towards a two-tier health system. [It] perpetuates a situation where high-income patients can afford better treatments for things like schizophrenia, chronic pain associated with cancer, debilitating excessive sweating and use of combination products, whereas people on lower incomes have to make do. The future access of Australians to medicines is being transformed into a political lottery.”

The government announced in February that it had blocked the listing of eight new medicines, despite recommendations by its own expert advisory committee that the medicines were value for money and should be made available to patients.