'The Facts'

AusBiotech has been named as one of the national peak bodies selected to join the Australian Government’s newly established Trade Diversification Network.

This single paragraph provides significant insight into internal priorities. It confirms that, as of 2025, Health officials were actively developing options to revise statutory price-reduction mechanisms to align them with changes to the NMFG. The nature of these changes, however, remains protected via redactions. The justifications for the redactions provide useful insights.

It follows MFN agreements between the Trump administration and Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Genentech (Roche), Gilead, GSK, MSD, Novartis, and Sanofi.

This article is the final in a series examining the 2005 Cabinet documents, released on 1 January 2026, and their long shadow over Australian health policy. Of particular significance is what they reveal about the evolution of PBS reform and the clear lessons they provide for 2026.

Avendran Naidu, Country Manager of Neuraxpharm Australia, acknowledged the significance of the PBS listing. “MS is a lifelong condition that places a significant burden on individuals and families."

Stakeholders often assume their engagement with Health Department officials reflects a binary policy process. The Cabinet documents reveal something far more complex. Engagement with stakeholders is only one input into broader, usually opaque, cross‑government deliberations that ultimately shape outcomes.

Australian biotechnology company Vaxxas has appointed former MSD Global Vaccines President David Peacock as Chief Executive Officer.

Some readers lament this publication's attention to history. But in a system marked by institutional intransigence, history offers the clearest lessons about the direction of future policy and how the system predictably responds to demands for change. Put simply, if you're serious about reform, you must be serious about history.

In a significant cross-border collaboration, Australian biotech company AdAlta (ASX:1AD) and its cellular immunotherapy subsidiary, AdCella, have entered into an agreement with Shanghai Cell Therapy Group (SHcell) to co-develop and commercialise a cutting-edge cancer treatment, BZDS1901, outside China.

Newly released Cabinet documents from 2005 reveal a program on the verge of transition, with changes to PBS pricing, the first step towards generational reform, the defenestration of an advisory committee, the creation of a special payment program for wholesalers, and a significant victory for community pharmacies.

What makes these proposals especially consequential for Australia is that the country is explicitly identified as one of the international comparator countries CMS intends to use when constructing the global benchmark.

As we end 2025, the latest outcome reveals the profound and worsening flaws in our institutional HTA framework. We need to consider the enduring implications of denying patients access to funded innovation, how those denials serve the institution's interests, and whether we are willing to accept the harms they entail.