The leadership challenge behind Australia’s medicine access gap

“It is an absolute medical miracle what we are seeing now,” said Dr Mike Freelander MP. “We are seeing people living long and healthy lives. We are seeing people with CF planning their futures with work, families, and children themselves.”

If two years is too long, how does one year become acceptable? What ethical principle converts two years of avoidable suffering into a problem requiring action, but twelve months into a policy success? Halving the delay does not remove the harm. Patients still deteriorate. The disease still progresses. People still die waiting.

Australia’s community pharmacy sector celebrated outstanding achievements at the 2026 National Pharmacy Awards, announced at the Australasian Pharmacy Professional Conference, recognising pharmacists, pharmacy teams and students who are strengthening patient care across the country.

Sandoz has announced a new national partnership with Camp Quality to expand access to trusted cancer education, psychosocial support, and community-based care for children aged 0 to 15 and their families across Australia.

With just one day remaining before climbers take on Australia’s highest peak, momentum is building rapidly behind the Rare Cancers Australia Kosi Challenge, with a surge in pharmaceutical industry team fundraising helping push the event’s total toward the $750,000 target.

Australia’s nuclear medicine sector has delivered a stark message to policymakers. Scientific breakthroughs are accelerating. Patients are waiting. Yet the health system is struggling to keep pace.

Heidi, an AI care partner for Australian clinicians, has announced a new collaboration with MedAdvisor that aims to reshape how pharmacists and prescribers manage clinical documentation and patient care across Australia.

New Zealand's Pharmac has confirmed that, from April 1, 2026, more children and adults living with cystic fibrosis will gain earlier access to medicines that can significantly change the course of the disease.

The simple truth is that any institution that implicitly or more likely explicitly accepts suffering and even death as an inevitable consequence of its decision-making framework obviously lacks legitimacy. Or, it should lack legitimacy. We should at least discuss it beyond technical inputs and processes, shouldn't we?

The $1.5 billion project builds on more than $3 billion the global biopharmaceutical company has already invested in its United States operations since 2018 and is expected to create at least 300 new jobs alongside hundreds of construction roles.

Argenx's newly approved prefilled syringe formulation allows the treatment to be administered as a quick subcutaneous injection that takes around 20 to 30 seconds.

Patients living with chronic pain say their pain cannot be reduced to a number, as a new patient-led communication tool launched at Parliament House in Canberra seeks to transform how pain is understood and treated.

Opening in 2028, the Sydney Biomedical Accelerator will be located at the Camperdown node of Tech Central and is designed to fast-track scientific discoveries into practical health care solutions.

Central to the initiative is the introduction of ObesiD, an Australian-first resource developed to support healthcare professionals in managing medicines for patients living with obesity.

Had the now-scrapped changes to FoI laws been in place in recent years, it is likely that the previously unlawful arrangements for the Opiate Dependence Treatment Program and the employment workaround that led a health department official to secretly release confidential company pricing information, leading to its publication in the infamous 'Vancouver' poster, would never have been exposed.

Health Minister Mark Butler has again stepped in to override the direction emerging from a federal advisory committee, abandoning a planned reclassification of intravitreal eye injections after warnings the change could harm patients financially and disrupt access to essential treatment.

New Zealand's Pharmac says a new multiproduct agreement with Roche is delivering benefits for patients and the health system, reducing treatment times and freeing up thousands of infusion hours across hospitals.

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