The Abbott Government remains committed to accepting the expert advice of Australia’s independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) without ‘fear or favour’.

What we will not do is pick and choose PBAC advice to suit political purposes, like the previous Labor Government’s disastrous and dangerous attempt to halt listing new drug recommendations until it returned budget surplus.

The PBAC has made a world-first recommendation to allow clinicians and pharmacists to give patients the option of substituting expensive biologic medicines at the chemist if there is a cheaper replacement or ‘biosimilar’ available that has been determined by experts to be a safe, equally-effective treatment.

Biosimilar versions of biologic medicines can offer comparable health benefits safely at a lower price, just like generics did for common chemical-based synthetic medicines a decade ago.

There are already biosimilar versions of medicines listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) that are being safely prescribed to patients as equally-effective treatments to biologics.

For more details, go to: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/health-mediarel-yr2015-ley73.htm