The negotiating room is getting smaller as officials narrow the scope

When this publication predicted in 2021 that the health technology assessment review would end badly, it was not particularly prescient. It was like predicting that a brick held above your head would hurt when it dropped. Yet even we did not expect this level of cynicism.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee has set expectations for using artificial intelligence in submissions. It allows the technology but leaves sponsors fully accountable for the results.

Seven in ten people working in Australia's pharmaceutical, health science and health policy sector say they are expected to use artificial intelligence at work. Yet only four per cent say their organisation has a dedicated full-time AI lead, according to the first Dispatch AI Index.

On the hardest climbs of a ride across Japan last month, Ngan Huynh carried a small painted rock made by a young cancer patient. She was one of nine Bristol Myers Squibb Australia employees who rode for Rare Cancers Australia, and together they raised more than $40,000. That is more than double their original goal of $17,000.

Mayne Pharma has agreed to sell its international business, including its manufacturing and development facility at Salisbury in South Australia, to Perth-based Evaris Pharma for $55.5 million.

A new Sydney company, Celairis Therapeutics, has launched with a plan to bring advanced therapies to patients in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and ASEAN. Its founders say new medicines reach these markets late or not at all.

New Zealand's National, ACT and NZ First coalition is on track to return to government by the narrowest of margins, but the result will not be settled until around 400,000 special votes are counted and the Electoral Commission declares the official result on 27 November.

Eighty-five per cent of Australian voters support expanding the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to cover all medicines approved for prescription in Australia, according to a Redbridge Group poll prepared for Pfizer.

Pfizer has confirmed Ben Fitzsimmons as the permanent Managing Director of its Australian and New Zealand business, six months after he took on the role in an interim capacity.

A call for greater accountability in institutional decision-making processes that too often ignore realities and patient needs. Spending priorities delay and deny access to medicines. Term limits for advisory committees can lead to renewal and new ideas. They should be accompanied by independent oversight and transparency. We explore private markets and digital platforms as drivers of access and reform, while defending patients’ right to research treatments however they like.

Some readers may ask why this week's series has focused on institutional renewal, accountability, and transparency rather than pricing or other reimbursement policies. The reason is structural. Health technology reform simply cannot deliver the change so many want because it is not the problem. 

If the peak bodies object to being bound to silence, they should insist that the instinct for confidentiality is itself a matter for negotiation. This third issue should be part of the negotiations.

The AstraZeneca boss said she was honoured to join the board and identified health and medical science as an important link between the two regions.

A further 25,000 Australians with advanced, incurable or poor-prognosis cancers will be offered free comprehensive genomic profiling through the next phase of a national program designed to help match patients with treatments and clinical trials.

The first issue we identified for the next round of negotiations for the Commonwealth's agreements with industry groups was renewing the committees that conduct health technology assessments. The second, which may not yet be on the agenda, is rules and accountability.

Government spending on organised immunisation reached $2.59 billion in 2024-25, almost half of Australia's public health expenditure, according to new figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

People living with multiple sclerosis have told the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee that patients who are stable on their treatment should not be forced to switch medicines.

In the first article in a series, we highlight issues that may not currently be on the agenda but should be. Health Minister Mark Butler has said HTA reform will be finalised through agreement negotiations, with advice from advisory committees. If so, the negotiations are the right forum to discuss governance, starting with term limits.

Yet the law remains the same. Under section 101 of the National Health Act 1953, the PBAC must prioritise a medicine's effectiveness and cost compared with alternative therapies. The Act does not require the consideration of, or make any reference to, consumer input.