Access to Medicines Working Group Meeting – July 2017
Page last updated: 12 February 2018
The first meeting of AMWG for 2017 occurred on 12 July 2017. Progress and achievement updates were made against its current work plan.
The Commonwealth entered into a Strategic Agreement (the Agreement) with Medicines Australia (MA) on 27 April 2017.
As part of the Agreement, the Parties agreed to consult with each other through the AMWG to address:
- current priorities of the AMWG (Section 99 ACB of the National Health Act, Managed Access Program and transparency of PBS processes);
- comparator selection, therapeutic groups and biosimilar policy; and
- where agreed by the Minister, other policy matters associated with the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
Significant progress continues to be made towards establishing processes to support the implementation of the Managed Access Program (MAP).
MA and the Department noted the important ongoing work to improve the transparency and efficiency of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) processes. This includes progress towards a revised pathways framework in accordance with the Agreement.
Both parties acknowledged that the introduction or cessation of policy topics for the AMWG would need to be endorsed by the Minister.
The AMWG will reconvene on 19 October 2017.
