Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a question for the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Minister, the approval and funding of new drugs and novel medical technologies in this country is too slow. Australians deserve best practice health care, but every week I hear from constituents in my electorate of Kooyong who are struggling to access emerging therapies for serious conditions. Today, on Rare Cancers Awareness Day, what assurance can we offer our constituents that the government is going to improve these processes?

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

I thank the member for Kooyong for her question, not only as a member of parliament representing her community but also as—before she entered this place—an esteemed researcher and clinician down in Melbourne, who understands our healthcare system better than most. She knows, as everyone in this place knows, that we have a terrific medicine system in this country, built on the foundation of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which gives Australian patients access to cutting-edge, world-best technology at, importantly, affordable prices.

As you know, Mr Speaker, and as everyone here knows, some of the technologies today literally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient, but, if listed on the PBS, these will come down to just $31 a script. And the PBS is constantly growing. We've added more than 200 new or expanded listings in just two years.

But the member is right: our health technology assessment systems are old and they are struggling with the pace of technology—this turbo-charged period of discovery that we are lucky enough to be living through right now. This was partly explored through a House of Reps inquiry last term that was chaired by the former member for North Sydney, Trent Zimmerman, and deputy chaired by the member for Macarthur, but it's been explored even more deeply by the health technology assessments review—the first independent review of our systems in about 30 years.

We know this technology is coming at us at a furious pace. For example, I'm told there are now around seven cell and gene therapies registered with the TGA in Australia. There are almost 4,000 in development, heading our way, and the development of AI is only going to accelerate that process of drug discovery and trials through molecular simulation. I'm told that, already, the first end-to-end AI designed drug is in a phase 2 clinical trial somewhere around the world, and that is just going to accelerate as well.

This review is timely. It is exploring these issues to make sure that our HTA systems, our technology assessment systems, are not just fit for today. We know these technologies are more complex. They're coming at us very quickly. They don't fit neatly into the old categories of a medicine or a diagnostic or a service. They're often quite hybrid technologies, and we do need to build an HTA system that lasts for the next 30 years. The next 30 years are going to make the last 30 years, as extraordinary as they have been, seem pretty pedestrian by comparison, I think we all suspect.

That review has been delivered; it actually landed on my desk this morning. We're going to give it due consideration. It was subject to very deep and broad consultation. It's an important piece of work started by the former government and continued by us, and I look forward to an ongoing discussion in this place and more broadly around the country about how we do exactly what the member for Kooyong's question asked.