The record in aggregate
3,023 decisions, 2005–2026. Every figure below is computed from the extracted record — no estimates.
Most medicines that come back to the PBAC get through — one in three only after a “no.”
One row per medicine, sorted into bands then by how many attempts it took. Each mark is one PBAC submission at that attempt number; the row runs as far as the journey went. Attempts are counted across indications, so a drug that returned for many tumour types shows a long row (pembrolizumab spans dozens — journeys past 16 attempts are trimmed at the right); listing dates are not shown. 452 of 566 (80%) end on a yes; 515 (91%) got a yes at some point — only 51 never did. A "setback" is a later no (often a new indication), not a delisting.
The scissors
The subsidy bill climbs alone — script volumes and decisions per year sit where they started. The blades open.
Table view
| Year | PBS spend (indexed) | Scripts (indexed) | Decisions (indexed) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| 2016 | 119 | 87 | 90 |
| 2017 | 115 | 86 | 90 |
| 2018 | 113 | 87 | 96 |
| 2019 | 119 | 88 | 102 |
| 2020 | 130 | 91 | 84 |
| 2021 | 137 | 91 | 83 |
| 2022 | 155 | 95 | 80 |
| 2023 | 167 | 97 | 74 |
| 2024 | 184 | 97 | 80 |
Drug journeys through PBAC decisions
Not nested: standing at a yes today (831) exceeds recommended first try (673), because 200 drugs were knocked back before they got through. Each row counts the same 1,057 drugs a different way, so the rows do not narrow and do not sum.
A recommendation still isn't a listing — 200 recommendations are currently in the waiting room, yes in hand, no PBS subsidy yet.
Months to a first yes
Only drugs whose first public decision wasn't a yes. Months run from the drug's first PSD in the record to its first recommendation (drug level, all indications pooled), plotted by the year that recommendation landed. Years with fewer than 3 such drugs are hidden; visible years carry n = 5–16 drugs (each year's n in the table view). A recommendation is not yet a PBS listing.
Table view
| Year | Median months | n |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 8 | 11 |
| 2007 | 8 | 11 |
| 2008 | 10 | 14 |
| 2009 | 8 | 5 |
| 2012 | 10 | 10 |
| 2013 | 12 | 10 |
| 2014 | 12 | 7 |
| 2015 | 8 | 13 |
| 2016 | 10 | 14 |
| 2017 | 16 | 13 |
| 2018 | 12 | 11 |
| 2019 | 16 | 11 |
| 2020 | 20 | 11 |
| 2021 | 10 | 12 |
| 2022 | 8 | 13 |
| 2023 | 12 | 10 |
| 2024 | 17 | 16 |
| 2025 | 8 | 12 |
| 2026 | 8 | 7 |
More from the record — 5 further views
Decisions per year
Table view
| Year | Decisions |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 76 |
| 2006 | 153 |
| 2007 | 156 |
| 2008 | 98 |
| 2009 | 78 |
| 2010 | 116 |
| 2011 | 87 |
| 2012 | 131 |
| 2013 | 98 |
| 2014 | 149 |
| 2015 | 194 |
| 2016 | 175 |
| 2017 | 174 |
| 2018 | 187 |
| 2019 | 198 |
| 2020 | 162 |
| 2021 | 161 |
| 2022 | 156 |
| 2023 | 144 |
| 2024 | 156 |
| 2025 | 156 |
| 2026 | 47 |
PBS spend
Table view
| Year | Spend ($B) |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 5.48 |
| 2006 | 5.61 |
| 2007 | 6.00 |
| 2008 | 6.43 |
| 2009 | 7.24 |
| 2010 | 7.65 |
| 2011 | 7.84 |
| 2012 | 8.71 |
| 2013 | 7.91 |
| 2014 | 9.54 |
| 2015 | 10.01 |
| 2016 | 11.94 |
| 2017 | 11.47 |
| 2018 | 11.30 |
| 2019 | 11.92 |
| 2020 | 13.05 |
| 2021 | 13.70 |
| 2022 | 15.52 |
| 2023 | 16.73 |
| 2024 | 18.39 |
| 2025 | 20.84 |
Spend per decision
The year's total subsidy bill divided by the decisions made that year — each decision now sits against $118M of annual spend, up from $52M in 2015. Decided submissions only; submissions received aren't public.
Table view
| Year | Spend ($B) | Decisions | $M per decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 10.0 | 194 | 52 |
| 2016 | 11.9 | 175 | 68 |
| 2017 | 11.5 | 174 | 66 |
| 2018 | 11.3 | 187 | 60 |
| 2019 | 11.9 | 198 | 60 |
| 2020 | 13.0 | 162 | 81 |
| 2021 | 13.7 | 161 | 85 |
| 2022 | 15.5 | 156 | 100 |
| 2023 | 16.7 | 144 | 116 |
| 2024 | 18.4 | 156 | 118 |
Therapy mix
Every area — including what "Other" holds
| Therapy area | Drugs |
|---|---|
| Oncology | 163 |
| Neurology | 93 |
| Endocrinology | 87 |
| Metabolic | 86 |
| Cardiovascular | 67 |
| Infectious disease | 63 |
| Vaccines | 57 |
| Haematology | 56 |
| Respiratory | 56 |
| Rare disease | 39 |
| Dermatology | 38 |
| Ophthalmology | 37 |
| Hepatology | 35 |
| Pain | 32 |
| Women's health | 31 |
| Rheumatology | 25 |
| Mental health | 23 |
| Gastroenterology | 20 |
| Other | 16 |
| Immunology | 13 |
| Urology | 6 |
| Musculo-skeletal | 5 |
| Diabetes | 2 |
| Psychiatry | 2 |
| Nephrology | 1 |
| Addiction medicine | 1 |
| Renal disease | 1 |
Areas come from the extraction; the indication taxonomy that would split the long tail further covers ~a third of the corpus so far — refining it is on the roadmap.
Revealed WTP
Where the committee said yes and the ICER survived into the public record — 65 of 1,286 recommendations since 2015. The rest: 691 cost-minimisation (no ICER by design), 220 redacted, remainder not modelled. Full sliceable explorer (filters, RSA, quotes from the PSDs) lives in the toolkit workspace.
The other committee
Not every Australian access decision is a PBAC decision. The Medical Services Advisory Committee assesses medical services, diagnostics, blood products and codependent technologies — including every CAR-T and cell therapy. A medicine absent from the PBAC record may simply have gone here instead.
- Supported 167
- Not supported 118
- Deferred / other 49
59% support rate across 285 decided assessments.
- therapeutic procedure 134
- genetic or genomic test 74
- diagnostic test 64
- medical device or prosthesis 25
- imaging 24
- screening program 9
In assessment now
| App | Service or technology | Applicant | Stage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1827 | Testing for hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg) to support the use of PBS subsidised bepirovirsen in people with chronic hepat | Glaxosmithkline Australia Pty Ltd | Pre-assessment |
| 1826 | N-Terminal-pro Brain Natriuretic Peptide (NT-proBNP) testing to support management of patients with heart failure | Roche Diagnostics Australia Pty Limited | Pre-assessment |
| 1825 | Transcranial Doppler bubble test for patent foramen ovale | Australian and New Zealand Stroke Organisation Ltd | Pre-assessment |
| 1823 | 177 Lutetium PSMA-617 for prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-positive, taxane-naïve patients with metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) | Novartis Pharmaceuticals Australia Pty Limited | Pre-assessment |
| 1822 | F-18 Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) for evaluation of complex infection | Queensland X-Ray Pty Ltd | Pre-assessment |
| 1821 | Testing for Chromogranin A in patients with neuroendocrine neoplasms | The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia | Pre-assessment |
| 1820 | In situ hybridisation (ISH) testing of tumour tissue to detect viral genomes (EBV and HPV) | The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia | Pre-assessment |
| 1819 | Lisocabtagene maraleucel (Breyanzi) for the treatment of large B-cell lymphoma | Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia Pty Ltd | Assessment |
From the MSAC application register, which lists every application at every stage. This is the forward view: an application in assessment has no summary document, so it is invisible in the decision corpus above.
Earned their yes
| Drug | Therapy | No / deferred | Recommended | Attempts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nemolizumab | Dermatology | 2025 | 2026 | 2 |
| Retifanlimab | Oncology | 2025 | 2026 | 4 |
| Romidepsin | Oncology | 2017 | 2026 | 3 |
| Tafasitamab | Haematology | 2025 | 2026 | 2 |
| Tirzepatide | Endocrinology | 2025 | 2026 | 4 |
| Tofersen | Neurology | 2025 | 2026 | 2 |
| Vorasidenib | Oncology | 2025 | 2026 | 2 |
| Encorafenib | Oncology | 2021 | 2025 | 3 |
| Fedratinib | Haematology | 2025 | 2025 | 2 |
| Fezolinetant | Women's health | 2025 | 2025 | 2 |
| Futibatinib | Oncology | 2025 | 2025 | 2 |
| Omaveloxolone | Rare disease | 2025 | 2025 | 2 |