Disease index

giant cell arteritis

Rheumatology · 2018–2025

3decisions
1medicine
1carried consumer input
1individual submissions

Every decision

MedicineMeetingOutcomeConsumer input
tocilizumab Tocilizumab biosimilar requested for listing under the same indications as the reference biologic Actemra, including active giant cell arteritis, systemic… Nov 2025 Recommended with restriction none received
tocilizumab Treatment of patients with active giant cell arteritis (GCA) in combination with a tapering course of corticosteroids for a maximum of 12 months. Mar 2019 Recommended with restriction none received
tocilizumab Treatment of patients with new-onset or relapsed giant cell arteritis (GCA). Nov 2018 Deferred 1 individuals

What the PBS pays

$70M in government benefit over 2024–25, across 91,499 services.

This is spend on the medicines considered for this condition, not spend on the disease. A medicine used for several conditions is counted in full under each, so figures across conditions add to more than national PBS expenditure.

MedicineGovernment benefit
tocilizumab $69.8M

Appraised elsewhere

NICE, in England and Wales, has appraised 1 technology for this condition, recommending 1 . A different committee, a different population and a different price: this is what has been looked at there, not a verdict on what happened here.

TechnologyAppraisalOutcomeDate
tocilizumabTocilizumab for treating giant cell arteritis TA518 recommended restricted 2018-04

Registered, not subsidised

Medicines on the ARTG for this condition with no PBAC record at all. Registration and subsidy are separate decisions: a medicine can be legally available in Australia and never have been put to the committee.

MedicineOn the ARTG sinceRegistrations
cortisoneCORTATE cortisone acetate 25mg tablet bottle 1991 2

The ARTG export holds current registrations only, so the year is the earliest entry still on the register rather than a first-registration date. The condition here comes from the registered label, which is usually broader than the population a sponsor asks to have subsidised.

Conditions are classified by a language model from the indication text of each submission, so an individual label here can be wrong. Consumer input is read from the document's own consumer comments section: 1 of 3 decisions since 2014 carried some. Silence means no comment reached the committee through that facility, not that nobody was affected. More on how this was built.