Medicines Australia questions spending on medicines

Australians are seeing their access to new medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) delayed while billions of dollars were being taken out of the Scheme, says trade group Medicines Australia.

In a speech to the Eye for Pharma Sales and Marketing Conference in Sydney today Medicines Australia chief executive Brendan Shaw called it the “Great PBS Detour,” noting that “the whole point of PBS reform and price disclosure, agreed by all sides of politics since the middle of the last decade, was to use those savings to fund new medicines for the Australian community. But today it appears that while the savings from price disclosure are pouring into the Treasury coffers, they are not being re-invested in new therapies for the Australian community.”

Spending decreased