25 October 2022 - Latest press release has two glowing errors.

Yesterday, the new Minister of Health issued a press release entitled 'Affordable medicines to treat skin cancer, lung cancer and ALH'.

The press release goes on 'From 1 November 2022, Australians will have access to new and updated medicines under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). These include listings for skin cancer, lung cancer and genetic disease X-linked hypophosphataemia (XLH).' A glaring mistake that has not been corrected some 20 hours later.

In relation to the medicine for patients with XLH, the press release states that 'Australia will be the first country in the world to offer this life changing treatment for both children and adults.'  This is simply not true.

Burosumab has been approved in the US and Europe since 2018.  The FDA approved it for adults and children, whereas in Europe it was approved first for children/adolescents and then in 2020 for adults. Note that the press release states 'both children and adults.' Burosumab has been considered by many HTA agencies in Europe since 2018 and subsequently funded for children/adolescents. It has since been assessed for children/adolescents and adults in both Germany and France.  The assessment in France was conducted in 2021 with reimbursement commencing on 1 March this year (as announced in the Journal Officiel). Contact us if you would like a copy of the announcement in the Journal.

The practice of making bold statements like 'X being the first country in the world to list a medicine Y' is fraught with danger. This is yet another example of the (new) Australian Government making false and/or misleading statements on its market access successes and timelines.

The claim is even more astonishing given the submission process started in late 2020 and it took three submissions from Kyowa Kirin to secure a PBAC recommendation.