Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme - Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits

Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) makes recommendations to the Minister for Health and Ageing regarding drugs which should be made available as pharmaceutical benefits, which are listed on the Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits. The Schedule is published monthly since January 2007, (prior to this it was published three times a year).

In considering a medication for listing on the PBS, the PBAC considers factors including:

• The conditions for which the drug has been approved for use in Australia by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. The PBAC only recommends the listing of a medicine for use in a condition which is in accordance with the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods.
• The conditions in which use has been demonstrated to be effective and safe compared to other therapies.
• The costs involved. The PBAC is required to ensure that the money that the community spends in subsidising the PBS represents cost-effective expenditure of taxpayers' funds.
• A range of other factors and health benefits. These factors may include, for example, costs of hospitalisation or other alternative medical treatments that may be required, as well as less tangible factors such as patients' quality of life.

Decisions on PBS listing are generally made on a health economics perspective, using cost-effectiveness analysis. Cost-effectiveness analysis evaluates the cost and health effects of one technology versus the cost and health effects of another technology, which is usually standard of care. A new technology whose incremental health benefit jutifies its additional expense is deemed to be cost-effective and thus reimbursed by PBAC. Drugs that provide little health benefit at considerable additional expense, such as the PDE5 inhibitors (e.g. sildenafil) and certain expensive cancer chemotherapy drugs are not listed on the basis of poor cost-effectiveness.