Healthy Skepticism Library item: 464
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Publication type: news
Metherell M.
Experts haggling over drug listing secrecy
Sydney Morning Hearld 2004 Jun 24
Full text:
The Federal Government has introduced legislation for a free trade agreement with the United States but has yet to reach agreement over the deal’s controversial provision allowing pharmaceutical companies to challenge Australian drug listing verdicts.
An Australian expert panel is still haggling with drug company representatives over the proposed review process, which critics say gives companies more scope to undermine Australia’s capacity to restrain the prices it pays for drugs listed on the $6.2 billion-a-year Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
The Herald has been told that a key point of difference remaining between officials and the industry is the extent to which reasons for the scheme’s decisions should remain secret.
Lloyd Sansom, the chairman of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, who is holding talks with the industry on the issue, has argued for greater transparency and described the trade agreement as an opportunity to bring more openness to decisions concerning new drugs which cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a year.
Professor Sansom, who co-chairs a working party with the industry group, Medicines Australia, to develop the review mechanism, acknowledged yesterday that the two sides had not yet reached agreement.
“As far as I am concerned we are on schedule to resolve any outstanding issues,” Professor Sansom said.
The agreement states that the advisory committee, which recommends new drugs for listing, should provide written information to the public regarding its decisions, while protecting information considered to be confidential under the law.
A spokesman for Medicines Australia said the companies were happy with the talks so far. But he said the industry did not believe the free trade agreement’s call for greater transparency was aimed at increasing the public release of data on why drugs were rejected, but at making the process more transparent to companies.
The Trade Minister, Mark Vaile, introduced the legislation into Parliament yesterday insisting the trade agreement would increase transparency and prices would not rise.
The Opposition’s trade spokesman, Stephen Conroy, said the Government was trying to rush an agreement on the legislation before releasing crucial details on how it would work. Labor has cleared the bill through the House of Representatives but has still to determine if it will block it in the Senate.
“We want to guarantee that we don’t hand control of the PBS to American drug companies which have the stated objection of destroying the PBS,”
Senator Conroy said.
The Parliament’s government-controlled treaties committee, which reviews all trade agreements, has recommended that the US trade deal be ratified.
The committee’s chairman, Dr Andrew Southcott, claimed the evidence presented showed the agreement was in the national interest.
The six Labor members on the committee added a dissenting report in which they said the inquiry had been rushed and more time was needed to review aspects of the deal that remain unclear.
