Wait time blows out to 3.6 years

Posted 19 May 2026 AM 

Australia’s wait-time for access to innovative medicines has blown out to an average of 3.6 years, with Medicines Australia (MA) warning that ballooning “bureaucratic delays” is leading some drug makers to abandon the jurisdiction all together.

In the newly released Access Denied report, MA exposes a ‘chilling effect’ on local access to groundbreaking new medicines with a survey finding 84 per cent of pharmaceutical companies say Australia is becoming a lower priority launch market.