Comment

The obvious and inevitable risk of the proposal is that companies will act to innoculate their larger and more lucrative market by not launching or significantly delaying the launch of new medicines in Australia. They may even be forced to consider removing already reimbursed medicines.

Mark Glover, Australia and New Zealand country manager of health technology company Medidata, says enhancing the design and conduct of clinical trials means putting patients at the centre of decision-making.

BioPharmaDispatch asked the Department of Health what seemed on the surface to be a very simple question.

There is a very fierce debate underway in another part of the health system and the pharmaceutical sector should be watching, very closely.

The federal government appears to be evolving its language on the PBS with more clarity and conditionality on what used to be very clear statements.

Does the value of these strategic agreements need to be reconsidered if their primary purpose is to serve as a platform for continuously consulting on and mitigating the impact of negative outcomes?

In recent weeks, shadow health minister Chris Bowen has revealed what appears to be a very clear intent to target the government's claims of virtue on the PBS - it means a new reality for the sector.

Is it fair for the government to pressure companies to provide compassionate access to new therapies when their own formal evaluation processes appear to be showing very little urgency when it comes to patient access?

The irony of the Department of Health's publication of its gift register is not the nature of what has been disclosed - but the fact it justified redacting the identities of gifters using the very same argument it now refuses to accept from companies wanting to protect commercial-in-confidence clinical data.

The published outcomes from the July PBAC meeting suggest the committee may be further evolving how it makes decisions.

The prime minister's characterisation of 'policy' versus 'implementation' works in theory but how does it apply to a program like the PBS?

The pharmaceutical sector might contemplate history as the negotiation of the Seventh Community Pharmacy Agreement gets underway - the last three agreements have all been associated with billion-dollar PBS price reforms.