An institution dominated by very clever people, but where is the wisdom?

Without mentioning the therapy or company, BioPharmaDispatch-BPDInsights.ai has a suggested version based on a recently published document. The technical gibberish, which is impenetrable to most people, has been removed.

Medicines Australia has appointed Jodie Wilson as its new Director of Policy and External Engagement, bringing an experienced market access and health economics executive into the industry body.

Australia’s viral vector manufacturing capability is set to support the development of a novel gene therapy and light-based treatment approach for obstructive sleep apnoea under a new collaboration involving the Viral Vector Manufacturing Facility, Optosleep and UNSW Sydney.

Are we so arrogant as a country that we expect a company to accept a PBS listing that effectively requires it to supply a medicine at a negative net price? Apparently, so. It is so embarrassing.

“While we should celebrate this outcome, we also need to ask how Australia can make timely access the norm rather than the exception," said Meredith Cummins, the chief executive of NeuroEndocrine Cancer Australia.

Australians living with neurological conditions are facing prolonged waits for diagnosis, costly care and a lack of coordinated support, according to the first national survey of people affected by neurological disease.

DBG Health founder and executive chairman Dennis Bastas said the former minister would bring valuable insight at a time of pressure on medicine affordability, supply chain resilience and access to new therapies.

While Professor Hunt cannot disclose confidential negotiating positions, cabinet discussions or the internal deliberations that informed ministerial decisions, he instinctively understands the dynamics that sit behind the formal process, including what ministers need to see, where departmental advice carries weight, how fiscal constraints shape apparently technical policy and when industry proposals become politically actionable.

The new central operational difference is the role of combination vaccines. Australia’s NIP uses combination products across infancy and early childhood, including hexavalent vaccines and the MMRV vaccine at 18 months.

The clearest way to see what is troubling about our use of health-technology assessment is to apply its logic to another social program, such as education. How would it work? Prepare to be uncomfortable.

An important reminder about the impact of innovation and why it matters. What does it say about Australia and our life sciences policy frameworks that locally developed innovations are commercialised in other markets, but not here? Patients need access to the rights they are currently denied and the 'Abilene paradox'.

AdAlta has reported continued survival among patients in its early-stage Chinese study of EW-001, with all five participants remaining in follow-up at the company’s March update still alive as of July.

Percheron Therapeutics, previously known as Antisense, has appointed biotech executive Dr Michael Baker as its new chief executive officer and managing director, as current CEO Dr James Garner prepares to leave the role for an overseas opportunity.

A new 'White Paper' developed by the Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association following its summit in Canberra in March has highlighted the vulnerabilities facing Australia's medicines supply and made a series of recommendations for reform.

The PBS might be viewed as a policy soup. Its ingredients, including affordability, availability, innovation, competition and sustainability, can combine to produce something very good. Yet if one ingredient is neglected, the whole system is undermined and potentially ruined.