Medicine Subsidy for Sufferers of Chronic Nerve Pain
Around 270,000 Australians will benefit from a medicine used to treat chronic nerve pain, which will be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
View by date:
Previous MinistersPDF printable version of Medicine Subsidy for Sufferers of Chronic Nerve Pain (PDF 166 KB)
16 November 2012
Around 270,000 Australians will benefit from a medicine used to treat chronic nerve pain, which will be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek today announced the Gillard Government’s decision to subsidise the medicine pregabalin (LyricaŽ) through the PBS at a cost of $447 million over five years.
“This listing will be a great relief to hundreds of thousands of Australians who suffer from chronic nerve pain,” said Ms Plibersek.
“Sufferers of chronic nerve pain complain of a severe burning, shooting pain, like an electric shock. It can be so debilitating that it affects people’s capacity to work and go about their daily lives.”
Ms Plibersek said pregabalin was the first PBS listing specifically for this condition, which has a variety of causes and symptoms, and which can be difficult to treat.
“The medicine provides an alternative treatment to opioid medications, which can have significant side effects, and are considered a last resort.”
The listing comes on top of new and extended listings for 10 medicines announced on 24 October, and is in addition to 100 new medicines or extensions to medicines that the Government approved last financial year at a cost of $546 million over five years.
Help with accessing large documents
When accessing large documents (over 500 KB in size), it is recommended that the following procedure be used:
- Click the link with the RIGHT mouse button
- Choose "Save Target As.../Save Link As..." depending on your browser
- Select an appropriate folder on a local drive to place the downloaded file
Attempting to open large documents within the browser window (by left-clicking)
may inhibit your ability to continue browsing while the document is
opening and/or lead to system problems.
Help with accessing PDF documents
To view PDF (Portable Document Format) documents, you will need to have a PDF reader installed on your computer. A number of PDF readers are available through the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) Web Guide website.