BioPharma

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.

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.

From February 2027, women will be able to get free consultations for uncomplicated urinary tract infections, start hormonal contraception and receive contraception resupply at participating community pharmacies.

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?

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.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme's share of Commonwealth health spending has fallen by about 40 per cent since 2000, and the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing forecasts a further decline.

The melanoma study's principal investigator, Professor Georgina Long of Melanoma Institute Australia, said the results "have the potential to make a foundational shift in how we treat patients".

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.

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.

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".