TOPIC: Australian PBS listing in March!

It's a farce when all is said and done.

Access for all........ EVENTUALLY.

Lies lies and more lies.

Love Greg Jefferys Blog!

I don't regret ordering the generics the other day. It's a small price to pay for a few months wellness. I can do a lot with three months of good health. If I wait and it is triaged I am at the bottom of the queue.

Plus, who would trust Sussan Ley?...she's totally shifty.

I think on the whole though it's wonderful news, because a whole lot of really sick people without any money are surely going to get treated. Well, reasonably surely....

I guess the slow down of treatment access will be booked out clinics. My source, only a week ago said that it was going to be 62,000 over 5 years for treatment.
Sorry Pete, if you spent the money, at the time what I told you was accurate.

The prescribing details have not yet been released but they have said that they are following PBAC recommendations and so far they have. The medication is to be available to everyone. Even prisons, no discrimination with prescribing. The interview this morning said 1 billion plus for this medication. No limits. If as recommended by the PBS they are to be prescribed by GP's then there will be no restrictions in treating. As people are already able to have scripts from GP's I see no reason why this should change once the medications are listed.

The minister clearly stated the number of people requiring treatment and said they would be treated. Not all people will want to be treated straight away. Some people don't have it as a priority just at the moment and others are waiting for even better medications that are on the horizon and have shorter treatment times. Some with previous exposure to DAA meds are waiting for meds with a higher success rate in this population.

This great news that has come about with a huge amount of hard work and lobbying from a large amount of people other than the people running the Buyers club and I think that could be acknowledged.

The Buyers club has done a wonderful job in providing medications for people who felt they needed the medications immediacy and those that didn't believe that they would be approved. People have been empowered by being able to take the decision into there own hands and they have been treated and cured or waiting for a cure. Job well done.

We should all be celebrating.

writing the card now to Helen, Nonna. kindly

I am absolutely celebrating for those who are seriously ill who will be the first cabs off the rank and get their meds asap (which will still be some time after March, but hey its happening now - which is great)

But realistically, it will take many years at the rate of $1bil spending/every 5 yrs to even make a dent in the numbers, since thousands more new infections are adding to that list every year. Many will not be prepared to get sicker and begin to have real problems before their turn comes up. I don't see why the idea that these meds will have to be triaged *due to cost* is so hard to grasp..it is the only logical way they can be distributed with a meagre amount of fund available (relative to the overall projected amount)

I refer you to Darren Russell's comments about the cap system on treatment w/o borders facebook page; it seems we cannot look at A$1b and divide by likely drug cost to estimate numbers treated.

It will be interesting to see the detail. But until then the good news is that it appears we will no longer be damaging people with interferon and the success rate will be at least 1.5 times as good. And that is good news!

G

That is great news yes GAJ - the excision of the old poisons, at least they will never be used again

I don't understand how they are going to do this with the amount of money allocated. So I understand people's scepticism entirely. I look forward to hearing the detail.

What I do know, what I do think makes this a truly historic announcement are 3 little words - "available to all". This is a shift in the zeitgeist that shouldn't be underestimated. That only the sickest get treatment at all had become the accepted mode of treatment delivery and was more and more cemented into the public mind with each passing day as just the way hepatitis c was handled.

Now the concept of universal access is out of the bag with a bang. While I don't know how they can pull it off (without generics) for that amount of money or if they will, I am at least very grateful they've had the courage to shift the agenda that dramatically.

I don't think that EVERYONE will get the treatment...it will be those who are very unwell (as it should be) but will be triaged for sure. I can't imagine that anyone diagnosed with Hep C, no matter how advanced (or not advanced), would want to put off treatment. I don't for a moment regret accessing my meds and am well on the way to a cure. If I were to wait for the Hospital system to get treatment I suspect it would be a long wait. I am still on the waiting list for an appointment (which could be 18 months away). I think there will be many more people going down the generics road because $1 billion over five years won't go that far really.

Maybe I am a bit cynical but I have no trust nor faith in our Government or our politicians, on any level.

Sussan Ley on the ABC ... no mention of time frames for '' treating everyone '' just grandiose statements of how wonderful the government is.

Hard not to be cynical isn't it?

Don't think its cynicism Lynne - its logic. Yes they are not putting "official" roadblocks restricting treatment only to the sickest (as elsewhere, and I agree Chester that this is a paradigm shift, well at least on paper)

However, in practice they mst be triaged supply purely due to the cost factor. The financial ability to treat only a relatively small proportion of the infected population means that everyone can't get treated. Unless Gilead dramatically drops their price, the aussie $ skyrockets in value, or another much more affordable supply chain is found. Hands up anyone who thinks those are likely.

Indeed.
It was a political announcement. it's a political decision.

The FixHepC model, incorporating as it does the testing regime, is potentially devastating to Big Pharma. It's Napster to the music industry (I'm not convinced by the Uber analogy). The Big Pharma strategists may be thinking that their business model may not be able to change itself to adapt any more than the music industry has.

Smart move for Gilead to take the high moral ground by going for universal elimination, slash the cost to enable that to be done - flood the market to retain market share.

But also lobby to make it as hard as possible for buyers' clubs like FixHepC to function.

One billion dollars CAN treat 230,000 Australians - IF GENERICS ARE USED.

Excuse my simple-mindedness, but why is this not possible? Why can't the Australian government just step outside the box?