Other Health

A minister's assurance that the review was moving to implementation rang hollow after officials cited a postponed, pencilled‑in meeting as evidence that recommendations are already being implemented.

A subtle but significant shift in Budget practice has emerged in Canberra during Senate Estimates, with Health Department officials confirming the reallocation of $2.7 billion in mostly future-program underspends to other portfolio priorities.

The ethics-approved studies to reword definitions are being overshadowed by an apparently inconsistent approach to stakeholder participation and concern in the medical sector, given its sudden inclusion in a process from which it has largely been excluded.

The 2026 Patient's Choice Awards, presented by Patients Australia, will bring together healthcare leaders, clinicians, researchers, patient advocates, carers, policymakers and consumers from across the country for a national celebration of excellence in patient-centred care.

Omico has launched a national real-world data initiative built on Australia’s largest prospectively consented precision oncology dataset, comprising more than 20,000 records.

Former Medicines Australia public affairs head, Gail Morgan, has been appointed as the inaugural chief executive officer of the Medicinal Cannabis Council Australia.

According to the company, in the Phase 3 RASolute 302 trial, daraxonrasib showed a roughly 60 per cent reduction in the risk of death and a doubling of median overall survival compared with standard second-line chemotherapy.

Recent waves of job losses across the local biopharmaceutical industry probably mask a deeper, systemic decline in Australia’s capacity to participate in the global life‑sciences ecosystem, with worrying implications for national resilience, patient access to innovation, and the country’s attractiveness as an investment destination. Are we at risk of following New Zealand in losing a strategic national capability?

Blood cancers remain a major health burden in Australia. It is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death. Around 20,000 people were diagnosed with blood cancer in 2025, and more than 135,000 Australians now live with blood cancer.

BioPharmaDispatch, also BPDInsights.ai, is publishing an edited version of the information provided to the unidentified participants in the second stage of the Delphi study on the definitions of 'high unmet medical need' and 'high added therapeutic value'. At least this way, those excluded can see its direction.

Links sent to participate in round two of the process are uniquely coded, single-use and ring-fenced. Whose input does it reflect? Surely we have a right to know? The fact that this was entirely predictable is still no excuse for secrecy and non-transparency.

Is this the outcome people expected, not least after almost five years? It makes the sudden urgency that so many now demand very odd. Given that the current trajectory means no change for the vast majority of new therapies, why the urgency?