Norman Swan

So if you buy a Mac in Paris or a Mac in Sydney, it's going to cost you the same.

They want uniform pricing.

But in fact, what really happens is,

Australia negotiates its own price.

And we negotiate some of the best prices in the world for some of these drugs.

But Eli Lilly wasn't going to play that game.

And they decided that the price the PBAC wanted was unrealistic, and they were not going to actually do that.

Now, this, in context, is part of criticism of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee that's coming from the United States.

pressure on australia saying this is unfair anti-competitive so you have to see this in context but it's entirely up to the sponsor eli lilly the pharmaceutical company involved to not put their drug on the pharmaceutical benefits advisory scheme and that's what they've chosen to do at this point

It's on the higher doses.

It's lower.

It's $340.

Except that there are other drugs available.

So the question here, is the story over?

No.

Or will Eli Lilly come back to the table for a discussion on that?

And interestingly, there's also...

Sandoz, another drug company, has been pushing an issue, which is an interesting issue, which we should probably cover in more detail in future health reports, about biosimilars and how to get biosimilars onto the market.

Now, to explain what these are, over the last 20-odd years, there have been biological drugs coming onto the market, which have quite dramatic effects on autoimmune disease, sometimes on cancer, lymphoma, and so on.

Incredibly expensive.