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Health Minister progresses Wegovy’s PBS listing
Following PBAC’s recommendation, Mark Butler says he will begin working with manufacturers to list Wegovy on the PBS for obesity.
A newsGP poll found 24% of respondents said patients’ continued interest in weight-loss drugs was the issue that impacted them most in 2025.
The Federal Government will soon begin working with the manufacturers of semaglutide (sold as Wegovy) to add the weight-loss medication to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
On Friday, Federal Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler confirmed his plans to work with Novo Nordisk to see the medication listed on the PBS for obesity.
It comes after the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) recommended the listing at its November meeting, releasing its decision late last year.
‘I, just before Christmas, received some recommendations from the experts that oversee the PBS, have for many decades, that we should look at a listing on the PBS of Wegovy,’ Minister Butler told Sunrise.
‘We’ll be working with the company to sit down and agree a price that works for them but also works for taxpayers because we’re committed to listing every recommendation we receive from that group of experts.
‘There’ll be more work to do though with this class of drugs.’
It comes as the medications’ popularity continues to skyrocket, with 24% of respondents to a recent newsGP poll saying patients’ continued interest in weight-loss drugs was the issue that impacted them most in 2025.
Minister Butler described the medications as an ‘extraordinary innovation we’re seeing sweeping the world’.
‘Right now, there’s more than 400,000 Australians who pay private prices just to get this weight-loss benefit and other benefits as well, but that’s as much as $4000 or $5000 a year,’ he said.
‘It’s beyond the means of many Australians who really would benefit from this.
‘It’s an equity issue as well as a health issue from my perspective.’
The PBAC recommended Wegovy be listed for patients who have already experienced a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack, stroke, or have symptomatic peripheral arterial disease.
‘To best reach patients at high risk and considering the high cost of treatment, the PBAC determined it would be appropriate to limit PBS access to people with a BMI of 35 kg/m² or higher, or 32.5 kg/m² or higher for people of Asian, Aboriginal, or Torres Strait Islander ethnicity,’ it said.
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PBAC PBS Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme semaglutide Wegovy
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