Health Minister buries HTA reforms in bureaucratic limbo

More than six months after the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Review delivered its recommendations, not a single one has been implemented, leaving patients waiting while bureaucratic debates drag on.

The HTA review, initiated in 2022, delivered its final report in September 2024 with 50 recommendations to improve access to new health technologies, address inequities, and streamline HTA processes. Critics argue that the government has had ample time to act and patients are paying the price for inaction.

Federal Health Minister, Mark Butler MP, acknowledged the unacceptable delays in listing new health technologies on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) but was quick to shift blame, arguing that the lengthy approval process was a longstanding problem under the previous governments.

“Many of the recommendations are very big in terms of what the potential cost to taxpayers would be. There are different views within industry and among patient groups about which are the most important, which ones we should act on most quickly,” Minister Butler admitted in an interview on 4BC.

He highlighted the bridging funding as an example, which he said would see taxpayers foot the bill for new medicines before they receive PBS listing. The initiative, already implemented in some countries, could immediately ease the cancer lottery by allowing patients access to time-critical therapies.

Yet, instead of committing to a solution, Minister Butler highlighted the financial risk, stating, “Taxpayers would put in half a billion or $1 billion into funding medicines before they’d been approved… If they were not approved, well, it would essentially be a loss.”

While stakeholders including AstraZeneca and Private Cancer Physicians of Australia (PCPA) support the bridging funding, others argue that the government should focus on speeding up the time between Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approvals and PBS listings instead, eliminating the need for such a fund altogether.

Minister Butler refused to commit to immediate reforms, insisting that the government would not “cherry-pick” easier recommendations but instead address the entire “package” of HTA reforms as a whole. The government has kicked the can down the road, waiting on the Implementation Advisory Group (IAG) to report back “in the coming months”.

Minister Butler made no firm commitments, merely stating that the government will “have to really make some decisions” and that the HTA Review reforms is “one of the more important areas in the health portfolio that the next parliament has to deal with”.

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