Medicines Australia hits back at Grattan Institute's critical report on pharma policy

Australian think-tank the Grattan Institute claims the Australian federal government is wasting A$320 million ($248 million) through its failure to properly implement a drug pricing policy for subsidized medicines.

It analyzed a policy known as the therapeutic group premium, where different drugs to treat the same indication that work in the same way are gathered into a group, and the government then subsidizes the cheapest drug within that group.

Medicines Australia, the representative body for the Australian pharma industry, has said the report misses the point and that reforms to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) policies are achieving substantial savings.