Medicines policy outdated

AUSTRALIA’S National Medicines Policy (NMP) is “outdated and needing review,” according to an article published today by the Medical Journal of Australia.

Associate Professor Orin Chisholm, Program Director of Pharmaceutical Medicine at the University of NSW and colleague Dr Brendan Shaw, wrote that a broad review of the NMP - developed in 1999 in a collaboration between the government, the pharmaceutical industry, consumers and health care professionals - had never been undertaken.

“The world and Australia today are nothing like they were back in 1999,” they said.

“The NMP should be comprehensively reviewed with a brief to involve all stakeholders in the medicines system in a broad consultation process.”

Key factors such as disruptive innovation, precision medicine and climate change should be considered in any review, along with pharmaceutical waste disposal and environmental protection, management and disposal of unsafe and unwanted medicines, antimicrobial resistance, IT, data analysis, intellectual property and more - see mja.com.au.