A hearing that provided more evidence of the need for meaningful change

Melbourne biotech Magellan Stem Cells is 17 years old and about to begin a pivotal Phase 3 trial of its stem cell treatment for osteoarthritis, a condition affecting more than 2 million Australians. Yet under legislation now before the Federal Parliament, it may also lose access to the refundable R&D Tax Incentive.

The real story is that per capita spending on the program, accounting for inflation and population growth, remains where it was ten years ago. Not so for Medicare and public hospitals.

A small Melbourne company founded by two medical researchers has landed one of Australia's biggest potential licensing deals.

The risk is that industry offers further concessions while reform remains conditional or delayed. In part two of his access series, Insight Strategy's Jody Fassina says the next agreements need clear commitments, funding where required, implementation dates and accountability on both sides.

The more one party needs what another controls, and the fewer alternatives it has, the weaker its position. Power does not really come from size or the strength of an argument. It comes from the relationship between two parties.

Australia’s Medical Services Advisory Committee has made a striking intervention on continuous glucose monitoring, suggesting that Health Minister Mark Butler expand eligibility to some patients as a policy decision.

AusBiotech says the Government's R&D tax bill still penalises the clinical trial and manufacturing companies Australia most wants to keep. The industry body is now pushing for changes in the Senate.

Dr Rolf Gomes, founder of mobile health service Heart of Australia, said that "one-in-five cases of lung scarring occurs in rural and remote areas, where those affected face significant barriers to accessing specialist care".

The report does not say how much of the balance relates to the PBS or when it expects to collect it, but a reference on one page suggests it could be close to $1 billion. This means net spending on the program could be overstated by around $1 billion in accounting terms.

The current agreement between the Commonwealth and the research-based pharmaceutical industry promised faster access to new medicines through HTA reforms. Four years on, that reform is still unfinished. In the first of two articles, Jody Fassina of Insight Strategy asks what was promised, what was delivered and who pays while patients wait.

A newly released document has, for the first time, revealed forecast net spending on the PBS to the end of the decade after rebates, and it's not good news. Why are officials calling it a new 'charging' framework instead of cost recovery? The documents provide a critical piece of intelligence that leaders must consume, and why history matters.

The Commonwealth expects to spend about the same on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme at the end of the decade as it does this year, after accounting for rebates paid by companies. Has it already budgeted a new savings framework?

Surely the issue of sustainability, raised by a senior official during Friday's webinar and long defined as not paying too much, deserves reconsideration. The PBS is becoming unsustainable because of the 'Faustian bargain' that, while well-intentioned for so many years, is now killing the program's ability to meet its policy objectives.

Services Australia's 2025–26 annual report reveals the agency processed 233.6 million PBS services, down from 243.4 million in 2024–25.

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has committed significant resources to a Canberra consultancy to build a new "charging model" for assessing medicines, vaccines and medical devices for public subsidy. It has not said publicly what the model covers, what it could mean for the fees companies pay, or when stakeholders will see it.

Dr Brian McNamee AO will retire from CSL's board in March next year, and Gordon Naylor, who has served as Interim CEO and Managing Director since February, will become the company's chair.

As current agreements have shown, trying to fix today's problems often creates new, even worse ones. Industry groups should approach the next agreement negotiations with 2031 and 2032 in mind, not the problems of 2026 and 2027.

Millions of Australians have shown they will pay full price for prescription medicines they want. They have shown less appetite for paying for vaccines they are told they need. As pressure on public funding builds, that may not hold.

Australian biotech Recce Pharmaceuticals has signed a deal with Arrotex Pharmaceuticals to sell its experimental topical gel for diabetic foot infections in Australia and New Zealand.

CSL has named Deborah Waterhouse, a British pharmaceutical executive who helped negotiate Australian medicines policy more than 15 years ago, as its next chief executive and managing director.