New PBAC appointments

HEALTH Minister Greg Hunt yesterday announced nine appointments to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, in the process increasing the total PBAC membership to 19.

The nine additions include five new appointments and four reappointments, with Hunt saying expanding the committee would give it greater capacity to deal with a “growing number of increasingly complex submissions”.

The new appointments include cardiologist Clara Chow; consumer representative Bel Harper; rheumatologist and epidemiologist Catherine Hill; health economist Kirsten Howard; and oncologist Meena Okera.

Community pharmacist David Newby was reappointed to the PBAC along with consumer nominee Jo Watson, general practitioner Rashmi Sharma, and clinical pharmacologist Christopher Etherton-Beer.

In May 2015 the government committed to increasing PBAC membership to 21 under the PBS Access and Sustainability package of reforms, with further appointments set to be named.

The package also created the PBAC Executive which is now in operation to “triage” applications to improve the capacity, efficiency, flexibility and operations of the Committee, Hunt said.

The Executive includes the chairs of the PBAC and its supporting subcommittees along with a consumer nominee, and “demonstrates the Australian government’s commitment to streamline the committee’s processes to improve patient access to important treatments on the PBS,” he added.