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PBAC recommends Paxlovid eligibility change
The advice, which is yet to be put in place by the Department of Health and Aged Care, will expand eligibility to people aged 50–59.
Almost 300,000 treatments have been prescribed in Australia since the oral antiviral became available last year. Image: AAP Photos/Stephanie Nano
The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) has recommended opening up Australia’s first-line COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment.
The new criteria mean patients aged 50–59 years with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 and one additional risk factor will soon be able to access nirmatrelvir and ritonavir (sold as Paxlovid).
The committee, which normally meets three times a year, made the recommendation as the result of an ‘out-of-session consideration’.
‘The PBAC was satisfied that clinical benefit and safety exists for use of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir in the proposed new patient group,’ the committee concluded.
‘The listing will be cost-effective in the expanded population for so long as pharmaceutical benefits dispensed are sourced from the stock already purchased by the Commonwealth, and which might otherwise expire unused.
‘As such, the PBAC recommended that this expansion of patient eligibility only apply until the Commonwealth purchased stock is exhausted or has expired.’
The first batches of the Paxlovid are due to expire in July 2023.
It is not the first change in eligibility since the antivirals came onto the PBS in May last year, with criteria eased as of 1 April to include over-60s with only one risk factor for severe disease.
The recommendations put forward by PBAC have not yet been confirmed by the Department of Health and Aged Care (DoH).
‘The department is working to implement these changes and will provide an update when they are finalised,’ the PBS website states.
According to the latest COVID-19 Primary Care update, around 298,340 prescriptions for nirmatrelvir and ritonavir have been dispensed, the vast majority of them through the PBS.
Up to the end of April, almost 10,000 prescriptions for the oral antiviral had been dispensed through the Prescriber Bag arrangement – also known as the Doctor’s Bag.
The RACGP advocated for their inclusion to give vulnerable patients greater access to the treatments.
The current clinical guidelines recommend that oral antivirals be started within five days of symptoms first appearing.
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