Australia passes off-patent drugs price cut bill
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Australia's parliament passed its medicines bill this week, bringing price disclosures and weighted average price cuts of 23% for off-patent and generic medicines for the state funded Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). The passage was welcomed by the industry association Medicines Australia which had wanted the bill to be passed this month as price disclosures are expected to start from 1 December (scripintelligence.com, 3 November 2010).