Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How is the Albanese Labor government making life-changing drugs accessible and affordable for Australians with high cholesterol and chronic heart failure?

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

I thank the member for Gilmore for her question because I know just how hard she campaigned on our promise to cut the price of medicines. Already, we are delivering on the promise that the member for Gilmore made to her community. In July, we slashed the maximum amount that millions of pensioners and concession cardholders will pay for all of their medicine needs by 25 per cent. Now, across a year, pensioners will pay no more than $4.70 per week for all of their medicine needs. In September, we cut the price of more than 2,000 brands of medicines, putting $130 million back in the pockets of hardworking Australians. On 1 January, we will deliver the largest cut to the price of medicines in the 75-year history of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, putting $200 million every year back into the pockets of hardworking Australians.

We are also adding more and more medicines onto the PBS. Since 1 July, already we have made 54 new or amended listings to the PBS, giving hundreds of thousands of patients access to life-saving, life-changing medicines that would otherwise be way outside the reach of ordinary Australian families. This week, we have added three more new and extended listings. On Thursday, we are extending the listing for Repatha, a medicine for stubbornly high cholesterol, to allow it to be prescribed for the first time by GPs. Ten thousand patients every year will now get access to this life-changing medicine more quickly and without having to travel to the city to see a specialist to get it. Instead of paying almost $4,000 for this life-changing treatment, they will pay just $42 and, from 1 January, just $30.

On Sunday, I met Terry at the new Calvary hospital in Adelaide. Terry is just 41 and incredibly fit, but he needed an urgent double bypass last year. He's recovered really well, but he now needs to go on this drug, Repatha. Now he will be able to do that, allowing him to run in the Sydney marathon, which he is planning to do next year. He will pay just $30 for the script.

Verquvo will also be listed for the first time to treat symptomatic chronic heart failure, a condition that hospitalises about 180 Australians every single day. Andrew was also with us on Sunday. He has had this condition for years and recently got much worse, to the point where he couldn't even lie down to sleep. He is now on Verquvo and will pay $6.80 instead of $1,900 for this treatment. He told me, 'We are hopeful it will boost my heart function and add years to my life.' That's what this is all about. Cheaper medicines aren't just great for the hip pocket at a time of burgeoning cost-of-living pressures; they also change people's lives.