Pharmacy Daily | Price increases also blocked

IT’S not just new PBS listings which have been delayed due to the government’s fiscal constraints - the Generic Medicines Industry Authority says it expects a “rash of delistings” unless health minister Nicola Roxon reverses a decision to indefinitely defer the implementation of Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority (PBPA) recommended price increases. In its presentation to the Finance and Public Affairs Senate Reference Committee inquiry into the govt’s s administration of the PBS, GMiA argued that in order to ensure patients have continued access to medicines, sponsors of PBS listed products must be confident that price increases for medicines will be granted when recommended by the pricing authority. By way of example GMiA cited the first instance where one sponsor had to delist a product from the PBS due to an increase deferral. According to GMiA, the unnamed sponsor successfully applied for a price increase to take effect on 15 March this year, but was informed a month after the increase was to occur, that the price increase would not be implemented due to the deferral decision by the govt. Unfortunately, despite a subsequent surprise decision by the government to approve the sponsor’s price increase on 21 June, the company was limited in how it could react to the backflip because it had already begun the process of delisting - which will take effect from 01 September. “GMiA expects that further products will be delisted from the PBS as companies assess the ramifications of the Government’s decision,” a GMiA statement issued on Fri afternoon said. “These Government policies are broad brushed policies that reduce the price of medicines without full consideration of the clinical need or commercial viability of the individual medicine” it said. The PBPA review is an important ‘safety valve’ – providing sponsors the “opportunity to seek a price restoration for products that have a clinical need and are not commercially viable,” the statement concluded.

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