E-drug: Australian PBS and first national medicines policy? (cont'd)
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Dear Colleagues,
Peter Mansfield noted:
The reference to the launch of the first national medicines policy is
a complete surprise to me. I thought we have had a national
medicines policy for years....
People who attended an International Conference on National
Medicinal Drug Policy in Sydney in 1995, jointly sponsored by the
Australian government and WHO, may also be confused. At this
conference, Australian medicinal drug policy certainly appeared alive
and well (under a Labor government). However, shortly afterwards,
the government changed. The good news announced last Friday is
that the current government (Liberal / Conservative) has also endorsed
a national medicines policy (NMP).
In practice, when they took office, the Liberal / Conservative
government kept key policy committees set up by the previous Labor
government. These included the Australian Pharmaceutical Advisory
Council (APAC) and the Pharmaceutical Health and Rational Use of
Medicines (PHARM) Committee. However, they slashed funding for
PHARM and other activities in keeping with their general policy of
fiscal constraint. More recently, these cut-backs have eased and a
new body, the National Prescribing Service,has been set up to assist
quality use of medicines activities (see: http://www.nps.org.au/). In
addition, APAC was asked to revise the national medicines policy. It
was this revision that Senator Tambling launched last Friday.
In short, the history of the four pillars of NMP in Australia is as
follows:
1950 - Equity of Access - the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
commenced. (A limited list of 139 life saving or disease-preventing
drugs was made available for prescription free of charge - now over
500 drugs are available but subject to co-payment and ongoing
controversy over selection and cost).
1958 - Quality, safety and efficacy - a Therapeutic Substances Act
was passed and a National Biological Standards Laboratory (NBSL)
established - by 1989 this had evolved to a comprehensive
Therapeutic Goods Act overseen by a centralised Therapeutic Goods
Administration in Canberra.
1987 - Viable Pharmaceutical Industry - patent life extensions (from
16 to 20 years) were permitted as were price correction payments for
companies performing local research and development (Factor f
Scheme, now the Pharmaceutical Industry Investment Program).
1992 - Quality Use of Medicines - the final integrating plank of
Australian Medicinal Drug Policy - PHARM working party became
PHARM committee and APAC was established to coordinate the four
pillars of medicinal drug policy.
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1995 - "One of the Government's major achievements in the health
arena has been the establishment of a National Medicinal Drug Policy
for Australia", The Hon Dr. C.M. Lawrence (Labor), Federal Minister
for Human Services and Health.
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1999 - Senator Grant Tambling (Liberal / Conservative) launched
Australia's "first" National Medicines Policy.
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Dr. Ken Harvey, Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health,
La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3083, Australia,
Telephone +61 3 9479 1750, Facsimile +61 3 9479 1783, Mobile
0419 181910,
Internet: http://www-sph.health.latrobe.edu.au/kharvey/
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