Can Price Transparency Contribute to More Affordable Patient Access to Medicines?

Can Price Transparency Contribute to More Affordable Patient Access to Medicines?

Affordable patient access to medicines, particularly to new premium-priced medicines, is an issue, even in high-income countries. The pharmaceutical industry has argued in favour of price discrimination amongst countries based on confidential discounts as a solution to ensuring affordability and availability in less-resourced countries. In this editorial, we explain why we disagree, and we elab...

Affordable access to innovative cancer medicines - don't forget the prices.

In Australia, HTAs for medicines are carried out in two phases. First, a pharmaceutical company makes a submission to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which assesses a medicine’s efficacy and safety. If the medicine is approved, an application can be made to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) to have the medicine subsidised by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). Th...

How Political Science Can Contribute to Public Health: A Response to Gagnon and Colleagues

Affordable and sustainable patient access to personalised medicine

PM has the potential to optimize the delivery and dosing of treatments so patients can receive the most benefit at the least amount of risk and harm, eliminating both the unnecessary side effects of toxic treatments such as chemotherapy and the delays associated with the “trial-and-error” process that many patients endure to obtain the correct diagnosis and treatment for their condition. And wh...

Patent dispute: Delhi High Court gives a boost to access to affordable medicines.

The Delhi High Court has rejected the petition filed by Bayer Corporation seeking to stop the Drugs Controller of India (DCGI) from registering a generic version of a patented cancer drug. The case was filed in 2008 by Bayer to try and introduce "patent linkage" which involves linking the registration (marketing approval) of drugs with their patent status. If Bayer's plea for "patent linkage" h...