obesity
Metabolic · 2023–2023
Every decision
| Medicine | Meeting | Outcome | Consumer input |
|---|---|---|---|
| semaglutide Treatment of severe obesity (BMI ≥40 kg/m² or ≥37 kg/m² for Asian or Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander patients) with at least two weight-related comorbidities… | Nov 2023 | Not recommended | 104 individuals National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation · Liver Foundation · Arthritis Australia · Weight Issues Network |
Who spoke
National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation · Liver Foundation · Arthritis Australia · Weight Issues Network
What the PBS pays
$260M in government benefit over 2024–25, across 2,176,978 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.
| Medicine | Government benefit |
|---|---|
| semaglutide | $260.5M |
Appraised elsewhere
NICE, in England and Wales, has appraised 2 technologies 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.
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.
| Medicine | On the ARTG since | Registrations |
|---|---|---|
| phentermineALENAMI phentermine (as hydrochloride) 15 mg sustained release capsule | 1991 | 54 |
| bupropion + naltrexoneCONTRAVE 8/90 naltrexone hydrochloride 8 mg and bupropion hydrochlori | 2018 | 1 |
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 1 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.