First steps in major medications reform

The first steps in a comprehensive suite of measures to improve access to new medicines are underway, a year after a major report recommending reforms was published.
 
The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Review, which came out in September last year, included 50 recommendations for policies, funding and approvals for emerging health technologies.
 
A separate Implementation Advisory Group was then set up, tasked with mapping out ways to put the recommendations in place.
 
Its interim report has now been released, and on Tuesday, Federal Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler said the Government has started consulting on ways to streamline medication assessment.
 
The process will include a review of current guidelines used by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC).
 
Minister Butler also said the process would look into undertaking rapid research into areas of high unmet clinical need as well as ‘high added therapeutic value’, which would include agreeing on definitions of the terms.
 
The recommendations in the HTA Review include an array of suggestions designed to boost access to new health technologies, address inequity, and simplify existing HTA processes for consumers and clinicians.
 
Last November an additional meeting of the PBAC was scheduled for this year following an ‘unprecedented’ number of submissions.
 
At the time Minister Butler referenced ‘a huge pipeline of new medicines and treatments’ which he cited as the reason behind the HTA Review.
 
Authors of that review state that 90% of new products could be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) within six months of being placed on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods if ‘parallel processing’ – ie applications simultaneously going to the PBS and the Therapeutic Goods Administration – takes place effectively.
 
The latest interim report by the advisory group gives ‘early insights’ into their work, according to Minister Butler, who said a final report due in January next year would set out in more detail how the reforms will be put in place.
 
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