Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kooyong for her question. I will deal with Novavax and Shingrix perhaps first. As the member knows, the Novavax original vaccine was finally approved and made available a couple of years ago in Australia. Take up was pretty low and it dropped off very quickly. The original vaccine was withdrawn from the market more than 12 months ago in Australia because essentially Novavax stopped making it. As the member probably knows, the Omicron version of the vaccine has been considered by TGA for registration here in Australia over some time. I'm advised a few weeks ago Novavax decided to withdraw that application for registration. I encouraged Novavax to continue working with the TGA. We would like to see as many COVID vaccines on the market as possible but, ultimately, that is a matter for the company.

In terms of Shingrix, we have the most comprehensive shingles vaccine program in the world. The take up by older Australians was phenomenal and about 40 per cent higher than we projected using the usual forecasting models. As a result, we negotiated the supply of an additional 750,000 doses of the Shingrix vaccine, which has already been delivered over recent weeks to all of the state and territory governments. That should be hitting vaccination points, GP surgeries and pharmacies pretty much as we speak, and we have another 400,000 as well being delivered in May and June, so we hope that some of those supply issues should be resolved.

The member, though, points to a broader challenge that countries around the world are having right now in a global market with the supply of a range of really important medicines. The TGA works with those sponsors to try and resolve those supply concerns. We work with doctors and pharmacies where possible to arrange alternatives to a medicine that might be in global supply shortage. We do that as much as we can. The number of medicines in short supply now is around 400, as the member says. Before COVID, when the mandatory reporting regime started in 2019, it was in the order of 300 to 400, so it's certainly a little higher but not phenomenally higher. But I'm still very concerned about this.

I finish by saying this as well. The Minister for Industry and Science today is at BIO 2024, the largest biotech conference in the world, promoting our Future Made in Australia policy because we want to make more medicines and vaccines here, which is why medicines and medtech are a priority area for the National Reconstruction Fund. We've seen manufacturing drop off over the last decade or decade and a half. We want to turn that around and make sure that we're making more of medicines here in Australia and we have our own sovereign capability.

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