Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement and the Medicines Working Group, I understand that information about that working group is available on the departmental website. In relation to savings on drugs, for the group that I described before as F2, the answer is yes, when the market is able to operate in relation to those drugs. They are now a commodity. They are effectively copies of drugs which were originally patented, so they are generally now off patent. When drugs go off patent there is competition, and that will certainly have an effect on the price of drugs. As I have said repeatedly, that will save the community, the taxpayer and the patient hundreds of millions of dollars—in fact, billions of dollars—over the next 10 years.