Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister update the House on how the coalition's prudent economic management enables the government to list vital drugs which save and improve lives, and how does this compare with other approaches?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Goldstein, who has been a strong advocate for the listing of new drugs, such as Kalydeco, Entresto and Stelara, which have helped people with many different conditions.

In order to do this though, of course, there has to be a very solid approach to economic management. There are two fundamentals to the way in which we have been able to do this. Firstly, there is the way in which the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and other members of the government have been able to deliver strong jobs growth and strong economic growth—this year predicted to be 2.75 per cent. In addition to that, we've been able to make a fundamental agreement with Medicines Australia to ensure savings of $1.8 billion in medicine costs, which will be reinvested fully to allow us to list new medicines in a timely manner. This has been a unique agreement which has brought together medicines, economic management and patient care.

In that context, last week the Prime Minister and I were fortunate to list a new drug, ibrutinib. Ibrutinib is a drug which supports patients with leukaemia and also with lymphoma. What that means is that we have a drug which otherwise would have cost patients $187,000 a year available for $38.80, or $6.30 per script—a dramatic change to bring this literally lifesaving drug into the reach of all Australians who qualify and require it.

It follows on from what we were able to do not long ago with the listing of OPDIVO. OPDIVO is an extraordinary immunotherapy. It's part of the new wave of immunotherapy which is bringing the opportunity of life to people around the world. On that occasion the drug was available for lung and kidney disease. For a cost of $1.1 billion, 4½ thousand Australians are able to access a drug which, for them, would have been over $130,000 per annum.

So that's one approach. That's about listing all of the drugs which are recommended by the PBAC. The alternative approach, when you don't manage the economy properly, is what we saw under the previous government, where they deliberately deferred—extraordinarily—drugs for schizophrenia, asthma, pulmonary disease and IVF which had all been approved by the PBAC. If you want a definition of good economic and health management, that's what we're doing; if you want a definition of bad economic management and nothing more than medifraud, it's their approach, on that side, to listing drugs. On our side we're doing real things to help real patients. (Time expired)

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.