By MICHELLE HERBISON
A DRUG developed through a $600 million worldwide trial co-ordinated by a Geelong doctor has finally won government funding.
The substitute for anticoagulant warfarin to treat patients at risk of deadly stroke has been added to the government-subsidised Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme after nearly two-and-a-half years’ delay.
Geelong Hospital Cardiologist Associate Professor John Amerena said pensioners’ pharmacy bills would drop from up to $120 a month to $6 when Pradaxa joined the PBS on 1 September.
The trial into Pradaxa coordinated by Dr Amerena in Australia led to approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in 2011 but the government had delayed the usual process of having it signed onto the PBS, he said.
“In this circumstance, the Government said ’We don’t want to, we think it’s too expensive, we want to get the budget into surplus,’ so they delayed it.
“They were worried that if lots of people went onto the drug it would be a big expenditure.”
Pradaxa and similar drugs to also join the PBS, Eliquis and Zarelto, would become potential life-savers for the 100,000 Australians with untreated atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat condition.
“If you have a stroke related to atrial fibrillation you’re much more likely to die or end up in a nursing home compared to other causes,” Dr Amerena said.
“We think only about a third of patients who would benefit from being on blood thinners are getting them because of all the problems with warfarin.”
The new drugs were “safer and more effective” than the less-consistent warfarin, which required regular blood tests and monitoring of food and alcohol intake.
“In reducing stroke, in a lower dose it’s as good as, and at a higher dose it’s much better than warfarin,” Dr Amerena said.
“We have 6000 strokes in Australia per year so anything we can do to reduce that number is good for patients and good for the health care system because these people end up in nursing homes.”
But Dr Amerena said the drugs were best suited to new atrial fibrillation patients and those who had complications with warfarin.
“If you’re stable on warfarin, there’s no benefit to change over,” he said.
