New Zealand's pre-election Budget boosts health spending, but Pharmac misses out

Powerful patient stories stand in contrast to a decision-making framework that explicitly dehumanises their lived experience. The need for 'decency and compassion'. Week one of Senate Estimates, the challenge of saying one thing publicly and something else privately, and a Budget that revealed so much about what is coming.

AusBiotech has announced a major change that will bring its three flagship conferences together as a single, connected week on the Gold Coast in October 2026.

The government’s internal inter-agency machinery does the heavy lifting before industry is invited in. That upstream process shapes, narrows and will almost certainly set the terms under which any negotiation involving the industry can take place. It still creates opportunity.

The release of the research coincides with the NSW Government's decision to expand eligibility for the free nasal spray flu vaccine to include all young people aged 2 to 17 in the state, adding to the country's immunisation 'postcode lottery'.

A single intravenous infusion of Lilly's investigational base editor VERVE‑102 produced dose-dependent reductions in PCSK9 of up to 88 per cent and LDL cholesterol of up to 62 per cent, with effects sustained for up to 18 months.

The commercial leaders discussed the market access and health technology assessment challenge in Australia, focusing on how attitudes of these decision-making executives have evolved in response to changing reimbursement, policy and system pressures

Australians living with an early pre-symptomatic stage of type 1 diabetes can now be treated with the first approved non-insulin medicine that slows the immune attack that leads to symptomatic disease.

ARCS has launched a new national model to strengthen the capabilities, visibility, and sector connections of public clinical research sites across the country, with Monash Health joining as a founding partner.

Can anyone think of any government agency or advisory committee that has ever publicly opposed more investment in the programs they oversee, not least when the demand for more is driven by the people they are designed to serve? It is uniquely weird.

Mayne Pharma has been awarded $13.2 in legal costs plus interest after the Supreme Court of New South Wales upheld the company in proceedings against Cosette Pharmaceuticals over the US company's attempted termination of the Scheme Implementation Deed signed in early 2025.

Pharmac has proposed switching the brands of meningococcal ACWY, pneumococcal, and influenza vaccines, and widening access to the influenza vaccine so that all children aged 6 months to 5 years could be eligible for funded shots.

A national survey of more than 1,300 Australian general practitioners and practice nurses has revealed a mismatch between the prevalence of age-related muscle loss and its identification in everyday general practice.

In the case of our HTA institution flying close to system perfection, or the sun, patients end up drowning like Icarus. The institution might be Icarus in flight, but patients suffer the consequences if it flies too close to the sun.

The simple fact is that when you refuse to budge on the institution's basic architecture or pricing, or set a clear performance indicator for time-to-funded access, you concede the two obvious levers for delivering what stakeholders want. It explains these consultation processes.

AusBiotech has warned that last week’s 2026-27 Budget offers a mixed bag for Australia’s life sciences sector, with welcome incentives on paper, but proposed changes that risk undermining its future growth.

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has urged the Albanese government to move quickly to fund diphtheria vaccinations administered in community pharmacies as cases of the disease continue to rise.

At this week’s BPDInsights and BioPharmaDispatch annual conference, Medicines Australia chief Liz de Somer and new GBMA CEO Nikki Lorenz signalled a goal of a united approach to the pending strategic agreement negotiations.

Can we hope that a new First Assistant Secretary to oversee the HTA Review implementation phase will introduce a new way of working and cleanse a process that currently resembles a stagnant pond?

AusBiotech and Tenmile have announced a strategic partnership to support Australia's homegrown life sciences innovation, unveiled by AusBiotech CEO Rebekah Cassidy and Dr Steve Burnell, Managing Director of Tenmile, during the opening address of AusMedtech Day Two.