Times tough for medicine
April 4, 2013
THE Australian Medicines
Industry is currently facing
significant challenges, according to
a new document released this week
by Medicines Australia.
The latest Medicines Australia
Fact Book contains key industry
statistics and other information,
with MA ceo Dr Brendan Shaw
saying the report highlights “the
impact of a challenging and
unpredictable policy environment”.
“There’s no way to sugar-coat it,
2012 was a tough year.
“While the industry is still
proudly one of Australia’s leading
manufacturing export industries,
generating over $4 billion a year
in exports, the fact is jobs have
been lost, clinical trial numbers
are down more than 30% over the
past six years, sales growth is slow,
patents on many major medicines
are expiring, and the operating
environment is generally becoming
much tougher,” he lamented.
The Fact Book showed that
new medicines listed on the PBS
fell from 22 in 2010-11 to just
15 in2011-12, while industry
employment declined for the fourth
consecutive year to 13,375.
Annual investment in
pharmaceutical R&D grew by just
0.3% to $1.037 billion.
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