Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister update the House on the steps the government is taking to create a more sustainable Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to ensure the provision of new and innovative lifesaving medicines for Australian patients?

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to get a real health question in the House today. I am also pleased to report that the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill passed the Senate just before question time. I want to thank the Labor Party for their support of a serious and sustainable package designed to underpin the delivery of new medicines and the investments in new treatments that we know we need to make in the next five years over the course of this agreement.

We are a government that are committed to listing of new medicines. The Abbott government have more than doubled the number of new and amended listings on the PBS to 667, worth almost $3 billion since September 2013. We have doubled the number that existed under Labor. We will continue to list without fear or favour. I say 'without fear or favour' because, unfortunately, under Labor we saw a lot of picking and choosing—picking the right or the wrong PBAC advice to suit the political purposes of the government of the day. We saw that with disastrous attempts to halt the listings of new drugs. Reversing that was one of the strongest commitments we made on being elected.

To ensure that we can continue to afford to invest in new medicines, we need to make sure that the taxpayer investment now is as efficient as possible. The agreement that has just passed the Senate has, at its core: $18.9 billion in the sixth community pharmacy agreement; a strategic agreement with the Generic Medicines Industry Association; $6.6 billion worth of efficiencies through the PBS supply chain; and $2.8 billion of additional direct investment into the pharmacy sector, including $1.2 billion in primary care, as pharmacies transition from just dispensing medications to being key players in the delivery of primary care and looking after our increasing cohort of patients with chronic disease into the future.

I am very pleased that this package has passed the Senate. I want to thank all involved, particularly those in the medicine supply chain, including, as I said, the manufacturers of both generic and innovator medicines. It is investments like this that enable us to do what I was able to do at the end of May—list a drug called Crizotinib on the PBS. It is a $60 million investment by this government. $80,000 is the real price per script. We worked with the drug manufacturer, Pfizer, through a managed entry program to allow access to this breakthrough drug for those in the most clinical need. We will continue to work constructively across the medicine supply chain to make sure that we look after patients.