Double or nothing: Unlocking access to new drugs

Medicines Australia is calling on the Australian Government to double the amount of money spent on innovative medicines as a proportion of GDP over the next decade.

The industry body has released a third report, Access Unlocked: A new deal to bring the world's most innovative medicines to Australians, which outlines the policy solutions it proposes to address the access problems described in the first two reports. It advocates long-term changes focused on three priorities, aimed at fundamentally changing the way Australia values innovative medicines.

"The actual amount of expenditure that will be related to new medicines will be as a result of all of those policy measures being implemented, and a reversal in the decline of bringing new medicines," Medicines Australia CEO, Liz de Somer, told Pharma in Focus. The Bitter Pill report revealed that only a quarter of medicines launched globally over the last decade have been subsidised in Australia.