Endometriosis drug Visanne added to PBS

Patients living with endometriosis now have access to significantly cheaper dienogest (sold as Visanne), a medication described by one expert as ‘literally miraculous’.
 
On Sunday, dienogest was added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), slashing its price in half, down from around $750 a year per patient.
 
Its addition marks the first time in 30 years a new endometriosis medication has been listed on the PBS.
 
Making the announcement at a press conference in Adelaide, gynaecologist and endometriosis expert Dr Neisha Wratten described dienogest as a ‘wonder drug’.
 
She predicts the listing will positively impact up to 500,000 Australians, saying the medication works for more than 80% of patients and can be used long term.
 
‘It’s been great in my practice in that we are seeing … fewer and fewer patients needing to have repeat surgery and until we had something as well tolerated as Visanne, often the only recourse for a lot of gynaecologists was to do repeat surgery,’ Dr Wratten said.
 
‘I started seeing women coming back for a three-month review and reporting that their symptoms had either completely disappeared or been reduced by over 50%, with a further reduction in the next three-month interval.
 
‘It was literally miraculous – I still pinch myself sometimes about it, I still pinch myself when the women come back and say how wonderful they feel.’
 
Around 14% of Australian women have endometriosis, with 70% of patients having to take unpaid time off work to manage symptoms, and 17% reporting losing their jobs due to the condition.
 
‘Shocking’ hospitalisation rates for endometriosis have also spiked in recent years, increasing by 24% over the past decade.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, more than 40,000 endometriosis-related hospital admissions are recorded each year, with the condition the 20th most common reason for hospitalisation for women and girls aged 15–44.
 
GP and women’s health expert Associate Professor Magda Simonis told newsGP the medication’s PBS addition is a ‘very significant and welcome change’.
 
‘It directly addresses one of the issues around management of endometriosis as a chronic disease, and the health-cost gap that living with this is associated with,’ she said.
 
‘The financial disadvantage people with endometriosis face is real, and the PBS has a role to play in making oral contraceptive pills and long-acting reversible contraceptives affordable and accessible.
 
‘Visanne is one of those treatments that helps women and girls who have heavy menstrual bleeding and who are in chronic pain but do not yet qualify for a laparoscopy and perhaps won’t if this is effective in treating their symptoms.’
 
For South Australian woman Lauren Jeffries, who was just 21 years old when she was diagnosed with endometriosis, her journey has been a ‘very frustrating’ one.
 
Ms Jeffries said she had pelvic pain every day that ‘didn’t ever go away’, she was fatigued, and ultimately had to undergo surgery.
 
‘Having to wake up every single day in pain and just think, “this is how it is and how it has to be”,’ she said.
 
‘When I got put on Visanne, about seven or eight years ago, it’s completely changed my life, so some days I even forget that I have it, I can just live a normal life.’
 
Ms Jeffries was able to afford the expensive treatment before its addition to the PBS, saying it was ‘something that I just had to do’, but its listing has left her more excited about the future, and the future of others.
 
‘It is about bloody time,’ she said.
 
‘If it can help a lot of other women the way it’s helped me, even if it helps one woman, it would be worth it.
 
‘Because, honestly, it’s been, as clichéd as it is, lifechanging for me.’
 
Federal Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler said the listing is part of the Commonwealth’s aim to provide better care and support for women with endometriosis. 
 
‘For too long, too many women have been made to suffer in silence, they’ve been told, by many healthcare professionals, it has to be said, that this is normal,’ he said.
 
‘You have seen a sea change in the community conversation and awareness about this condition in the last few years, which must be enormously rewarding for those who work so hard to achieve that.’
 
The new PBS listing comes ahead of two new Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items rolling out in July 2025 which will enable extended consultations for those living with endometriosis and complex gynaecological conditions.
 
The changes will subsidise $168.60 for a minimum of 45 minutes during a longer initial gynaecologist consultation, compared to the standard rate of $95.60, and for follow up consultations, it will cover $84.35 for a minimum of 45 minutes, compared to the standard rate of $48.05.
 
Dr Simonis said these changes, among many others, are all adding to an overall increase in attention on women’s health.
 
‘These are diseases that impact women and girls during their most formative phases of life – schooling when in their teens, university when in their 20s, during career-building, and establishing relationships, and considering having a family,’ she said.
 
‘The whole of society benefits when girls and women are pain free and enabled to contribute in their full capacity.’
 
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