An architect of the first industry–Commonwealth medicines pact to lead CSL

GLP-1 medicines were a key part of the update. Sigma said the business was still growing even though the first sales boost from these medicines is now in the base. "Growth is encouraging as we have now cycled the initial structural uplift from the introduction of GLP-1 sales," Managing Director and Chief Executive Vikesh Ramsunder said.

Britain has made an expensive, public bid to win back pharmaceutical investment, and it has not yet paid off. That is the finding of Open for Business, a new report from consultancy Evohealth, which describes the UK's effort as "a commitment, not yet a conversion".

Telix Pharmaceuticals has reaffirmed that it will pass US$1 billion in revenue and other income this year. Its third-quarter sales were consistent with the previous quarter, and it is working through a US$1.65 billion merger.

BioNTech has opened its clinical-scale mRNA manufacturing and research facility at La Trobe University's Bundoora campus, nearly three years after announcing the plan.

If anything, it is remarkable that patient groups advocate so strongly for access to medicines when the companies that make them provide so little of their funding. Advocacy that persists without the money cannot be explained by the money. It is explained by what patients need.

It reflects a maturing market. Growth no longer depends only on new patients. It also draws on a large and growing pool of former users, many of whom stopped because of cost or a dislike of injections, and who may return when the product, price, or format changes.

Patient groups in Australia and New Zealand are the most active in the Asia-Pacific region in putting patient cases to medicines regulators and funders.

A new paper published in the MJA warns that pharmaceutical companies' money threatens the independence of patient groups. Its own numbers tell a different story, and the biggest funder of consumer health advocacy goes unexamined.

The research-based industry is considering pushing for a reference pricing law in its new agreement with the Commonwealth. The risk is that the Government agrees, because while a policy can be set aside, a statute is mostly immovable.

Oncologists have been having these conversations for so long that Private Cancer Physicians of Australia now runs communication skills workshops on discussing high-cost medicines. Every oncologist and haematologist "will have their stories", Steer said, and many patients turn to groups such as Rare Cancers Australia for help raising money.

Welcome to the first podcast video recording. Recorded at the recent Pfizer Invites event, this episode focuses on the rapidly emerging private market and whether it can catalyse meaningful medicines reform to benefit patients who are either waiting extended periods for funded access, paying for it themselves, or missing out altogether.

Medicines Australia has added two new directors to its board. Anne Harris of Novartis and Ed Hollywood of Boehringer Ingelheim. Ms Harris's could prove critical as the only director who was there for the negotiation of the current agreement.

Asked when private prescribing would move from a specialist concern to an issue voters care about, the Redbridge pollster said it already had. "I think it's already jumped that shark and the political class just haven't realised it," he said.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee is listed as a witness in its own right at Senate Estimates, and the scheduling says as much as any question senators will ask.

New Zealand's political parties agree that Pharmac needs more money ahead of the 7 November election, with National promising NZ$604 million, ACT committing to a major multi-year increase, and Labour backing the direction while not yet naming its own figure.

As Australia's life sciences sector meets on the Gold Coast this week for the 'Biggest Week in Biotech', the science has rarely looked stronger, while the conditions around it have rarely looked less settled.

At its September 2026 meeting, the committee recommended Amgen's IMDELLTRA (tarlatamab) for small-cell lung cancer with conditions and Sanofi's BEYFORTUS (nirsevimab) for the National Immunisation Program. It also recommended wider PBS access to fourteen antidepressants.

Health technology assessment informs decisions about public funding for new medicines and other health technologies. By the sector's own account, it is also a strong candidate for AI-supported efficiencies.

In a discussion with BioPharmaDispatch, Professor Hill said the starting point was a set of management questions she put to the chief executives of major teaching hospitals. What can you stop doing, how can you re-engineer pathways, and how can you do things earlier?

Biogen's Australian and New Zealand business has been certified as a Great Place to Work for the fifth time. Employees rated the company above the benchmark on most measures of fair treatment at work.