AstraZeneca advocates for earlier, faster and fairer access to medicines

Australian cancer patients don’t have time to wait

AstraZeneca advocates for earlier, faster and fairer access to medicines for Australian cancer patients

Growing demand to improve access to potentially lifesaving cancer treatments in Australia, and a rapid increase in innovative medicine development, is fuelling government and community interest in the future of accessible treatments for Australian cancer patients and their families.

However, it is not commonly known that Australian cancer patients wait, on average, 442 days between a potentially life-changing cancer medicine receiving approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), and that medicine being reimbursed through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

This length of time is significantly longer than the average time for the same process across all 20 OECD countries, which is 384 days. Some of the fastest OECD countries to ensure medicines are available to patients via government reimbursement include Japan (102 days), Germany (136 days), Great Britain (156 days) and Sweden, which ranks 8 out of 20 at 325 days.

Australia’s average waiting period is almost a year longer than these comparable OECD countries. For example, five AstraZeneca cancer medicines were PBS listed over a three-month period in 2023. The time from TGA registration to PBS reimbursement ranged from 240 days to as long as 1,065 days.

Rapid access to innovative treatments is critical for Australian cancer patients, who may otherwise have limited treatment options. Some patients will pass away while they are waiting for treatments to be funded through the PBS. Others crowdfund to meet private treatment costs. Some must seek treatment overseas.

To address the significant time delay that patients face in Australia, this year AstraZeneca has been advocating for the government to introduce bridging funding for medicines. Bridging funding could provide interim government funding to ‘bridge’ the gap between TGA registration and PBS reimbursement for medicines where there is a high unmet need and where patients cannot afford the time for the medicine to be listed on the PBS.

This would ensure patients could get faster access to treatment options, expected to provide improvement to their health outcomes over existing therapies, some of which have already been used for decades. This fund would help patients gain earlier access to cancer medicines that may save or significantly extend their life.

In March 2024, AstraZeneca launched a Green Paper  at a parliamentary roundtable at Parliament House in Canberra which addressed the evidence to support the need for bridging funding in Australia for cancer patients.

At this roundtable, Associate Professor Christopher Steer, President of the Private Cancer Physicians of Australia, delivered a powerful statement about the need for bridging funding for Australian cancer patients: “Clinicians would like the ability to give new medicines to patients, the moment the science tells us it’s the right thing to do.”

Broad support for faster access to medicines has continued to gain significant momentum among health, policy and patient experts. Since the launch of this Green Paper, more than 40 experts from oncology, policy, health and industry have met across three policy roundtables to discuss the need for bridging funding. Twenty of these experts are now volunteering in a policy working group to continue advocating for bridging funding for medicines, while simultaneously developing guidelines for bridging funding that could be accepted by government as a consideration for their next Federal Budget.

For more information or to learn more about the ongoing working party, please contact Penny George, Director Corporate Affairs, AstraZeneca on penny.george@astrazeneca.com

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