Hundreds of medicines to rise in price on October 1

From October 1 patients will be paying heaps more for their prescription medicines. See full list of medicines going up.

Exclusive: The price of nearly 900 prescription medicines is set to rise on October 1 under a deal struck with the generic medicines industry to overcome drug shortages.

The nation’s biggest selling scripts including cholesterol lowering statins, antibiotics, antidepressants, reflux treatments and diabetes drugs will increase in price by up to several dollars per script.

Pensioners and concession card holders will not be affected by the price rises and will continue to pay the set charge of $6.80 per script.

However the Department of Health and Ageing has warned: “The price increases may result in an increase to the maximum general patient charge for medicines that receive a price increase”.

And they will also come at substantial cost to taxpayers who will be paying generic companies sometimes five times as much for medicines as is paid now.

The price rises will further fuel inflation which the Reserve Bank forecasts will peak at 7 per cent in December.

Medicine prices are set to rise on October 1.

The price rises are the result of a strategic agreement struck between the previous Morrison Government and the generic medicines industry to overcome shortages of medicines.

The deal affects all of the top 10 most commonly prescribed medicines on the medicines subsidy scheme the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

These medicines are off patent and the ex-manufacturer price is currently below $4 per pack.

Some of the medicines, like blood pressure treatment and heart failure drug candesartan, cost just 43 cents per pack. That drug’s ex-manufacturer price will rise to $2.50.

The nation’s biggest selling treatment anti-cholesterol drug atorvastatin, which costs $2.95 (ex-manufacturer), will jump to $3.45. Rosuvastatin will rise from $1.70 to $2.50.

Anti anxiety treatment sertraline will undergo a price hike from $1.57 to $2.50.

Asthma treatment salbutamol will rise from $2.61 to $3.11.

A spokesperson for Health Minister Mark Butler said: “This was an arrangement inherited from the former government”.

“The Albanese Government will reduce medicine prices for Australians by reducing the cost of scripts by 29 per cent, with the maximum co-pay to drop to $30. This could save someone taking one medication a month $150 every year,” the spokesperson said.

The Victorian Branch President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Anthony Tassone said:

“Some patients without a concession card may see one-off increases in the price charged for some medicines”.

“These measures and that the associated one-off price increases from October 1st are as a result of a government and manufacturer initiative,” he said.

The price rises are part of a deal to end medicine shortages.

Pricing of medicines under the PBS is highly complex and in addition to the ex-manufacturer charge, pharmacists can apply dispensing, administration and handling fees of up to $18.40 to the price of the medicine.

Discount pharmacy chains like Chemist Warehouse limit these extra fees and charge just $5.99 for many of these scripts.

This is because they order such large quantities of medicines they get a discount on the ex-manufacturer price.

However, in another blow for consumers, these discounts are set to end for drugs priced under $4 because of the new strategic agreement with the generic medicines industry.

Any medicine supplier who offers discounts on their drugs to chemists will have their product removed from the medicines subsidy scheme.

This change is likely to make it harder for discount pharmacies to maintain their extremely low prices.

Chemist Warehouse Director Mario Tascone said the company was not planning any price rises yet.

“Despite these significant changes to the cost prices of these molecules, Chemist Warehouse will hold off any price rise to its patients,” he said.

“Permanently and artificially raising the wholesale price of prescription medicines (which will flow directly to the bottom line of drug companies P & L) seems like an odd thing to do in times where the cost of living is already rising out of control.

“Previous stock shortages were the result of a once in a lifetime pandemic. Not sure a significant and permanent raising of prices is necessary.”

Chemist Warehouse Director Mario Tascone said the company was not planning any price rises yet. Picture: Michael Dodge

Explaining the changes, the Department said on its website that “Medicine Shortages Increasingly, global medicine shortages are interrupting supply of medicines that are the mainstay of treatment for some of the most prevalent health conditions in the Australian community”.

Requiring companies to hold up to six months’ supply of medicines in Australia would help overcome this problem.

“Greater buffers will allow time for supply disruptions to be resolved and ensure better continuity of supply for Australians, including through identifying alternative sources of supply (where possible),” it said.

It said the price rises would help manufacturers of low cost medicine cover costs of improvements in the supply chain which could include problems like medicines going out of date while stockpiled.

The Labor Party promised to cut the price of prescription medicines by $12.50 per script from January 1, 2023 but this promise will not affect the drugs caught up in this new price rise.

It only applies to medicines that cost more than $42.50, all the medicines that will rise in price on October 1 are priced well below this amount.