E-drug: More on the crisis in the Australian PBS
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More articles on the moves by the Australian Government to remove
members of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, under
pressure from the drug industry. The first is an article by Ray
Moynihan in the Australian Financial Review, Friday 1st Dec. This is
followed by the URLs for articles and an editorial in the Age and
Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday morning.
Reprinted under the fair use doctrine
of international copyright law:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
Thank-you to all who are supporting us during this difficult time.
(Potential conflict of interest disclosure by author: David Henry was
Ray Moynihan's mentor during his 1999 Harkness Fellowship, and the
two were among the co-authors of a scientific paper published in
the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2000.)
David Henry
Professor of Clinical Pharmacology
Head, School of Population Health Sciences
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences
The University of Newcastle
New South Wales
Australia
Phone +61 249 211856
Fax +61 249 602088
David Henry <mddah@mail.newcastle.edu.au>
[Drugs listed on the PBS list are available to Australians on
prescription at a subsidised rate, as explained by Melissa Raven.
This scheme is particularly significant for expensive drugs such a
omeprazole and other much more expensive ones. By having their
products listed, drug companies are assured the products will be
prescribed and the government pays the cost of the drug according to
an agreement with the drug company. I believe the PBAC, the
committee that decides whether it is appropriate for a drug to be
listed for subsidy on the PBS, has played a role over the years that
Australians can be proud of. BS co-moderator (personal opinion)]
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Row over drug panel shake-up
by Ray Moynihan
Australian Financial Review
The pharmaceutical industry is set to win a major victory, as the
Federal Government is moving to dump key independent advisers who
recommend new drugs for listing on the taxpayer-funded Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme.
Members of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee have been a
thorn in the side of the industry in recent years, blocking the
listing of a number of high-profile drugs on the $3 billion-a-year
scheme, which is
designed to make prescriptions affordable for all Australians. New drugs
blocked by the committee include Viagra, which could have generated
sales of more than $50 million a year had it attracted the public
subsidy under the PBS.
Industry has been lobbying Canberra intensely for changes to the
committee's operations, which are doubly vexing for global companies
because Australia's system is being taken up as a model around the world.
The Government plans to rush through new legislation as soon as next
week to change the membership of the powerful committee, a move
critics have attacked as bowing to industry pressure. Amendments will
be tacked on to an unrelated health bill which has already passed
through the House of Representative and is due for debate in the
Senate on Monday.
"The Government is laying itself open to the criticism that it is
kow-towing to the drug industry's interest," said La Trobe University
Professor Stephen Duckett, a health policy expert and former head of
the federal Health Department under the Labor Government. "If this
change is a result of industry pressure, and it certainly looks that
way, the whole process of drug assessment could become subject to
industry pressure in the future and thus, this change is setting a
very dangerous precedent."
The committee's role is to assess whether health benefits offered by
new drugs are worth the cost and then decide which ones should
receive public subsidy.The cost of the pharmaceutical benefits
scheme, already more than $3 billion a year, is growing rapidly and
there are concerns that watering down the committee's assessment
process could blow costs out further.
The parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health, Senator Grant
Tambling, who will introduce the amendments on Monday, rejects
suggestions the Government is doing industry's bidding. He says the
planned changes to membership arise from a formal review of the
advisory committee and have been agreed to by a range of interest
groups including committee members.
If passed, the amendments would introduce new ways of nominating
committee members and strict retrospective time limits on tenure
which would see a number of members effectively sacked. "Having
specific terms of office will produce a more appropriate committee,"
Senator Tambling said.
The Opposition's health spokesperson, Ms Jenny Macklin, said she
would look at the changes on their merits but was concerned they
could be motivated by the drug industry's desire to remove key
committee members including the chairman, Professor Don Burkett, and
a sub-committee chairman, Professor David Henry. Both members have
served on the committee for more than eight years and could
potentially be dropped immediately under the new rules. "Getting rid
of key experts wouldn't be something we'd support," Ms Macklin said.
"It is the expertise of the committee which gives it credibility and
independence. Making sure medicines are available at the cheapest
price possible has to be the priority, and the current scheme does
that very well."
The most public attacks on the committee have come from US-based drug
giant Pfizer, which launched a court challenge last year to the
committee's rejection of Viagra. In March this year a Federal Court
judge resoundingly rejected Pfizer's case on all grounds, and the
judgement from a subsequent appeal to the Full Bench is pending.
"Earlier this year one drug company tried to shoot holes in the scheme in
court, and failed. Now it appears industry is trying to white-ant it
politically," said Professor Duckett.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0012/02/html/editorial.html
http://www.theage.com.au/breaking/0012/01/A51123-2000Dec1.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0012/02/national/national5.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0012/02/national/national7.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0012/02/national/national6.html
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