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‘The Right Call:’ Australia’s PBAC Addresses ‘Unprecedented’ Backlog With Extra Meeting

 
• By Neena Brizmohun

The government’s decision for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee to hold an extra meeting in 2025 has been welcomed by Medicines Australia, which says that Australians already wait on average 466 days from the time a medicine is approved to when it is subsidized.

Healthcare Medicine And Pharmacy In Australia Concept Pills Vials
Australians wait longer to access drugs than people in comparable countries. (Shutterstock)

The Australian government says that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee will now hold an additional meeting in 2025 to address the immediate backlog of PBAC submissions from companies seeking to get their drugs subsidized under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

Key Takeaways

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee will hold an additional full meeting in May 2025 to consider submissions from pharmaceutical companies that will be deferred from the March 2025 meeting because of the unprecedented number of submissions received.

The March 2025 meeting will be used to consider the submissions most likely to benefit patients and improve the standard of care in Australia.

Medicines Australia wants the government and the PBAC to review the current list of medicine evaluators engaged by the committee and expand the panel of evaluators so there is appropriate surge capacity to deal with the consideration of new medicines as they are submitted.

The move, announced on 6 November, follows the PBAC’s decision in late October to defer...

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