New report highlights the vital role of TGA-licensed compounders and the urgent need to address funding shortfall
TGA-licensed compounders support nearly 2 in every 3 cancer treatments in Australia, including the vast majority in rural, regional and remote Australia.
The network of TGA-licensed compounders ensures that cancer patients around Australia have equitable and timely access to quality cancer medicine treatments.
TGA-licensed compounders take pressure off the hospital system through their state-of-the-art licensed facilities, highly-training workforce, and national distribution networks.
Research confirms that the licensed compounding sector is at increasing risk if an unsustainable funding shortfall is not addressed.
Unless urgent action is taken, this could destabilise the broader cancer care ecosystem, and risk patient access to over 60% of complex cancer medications in Australia.
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A report by Shawview Consulting for the TGA-Licensed Chemotherapy Compounders of Australia (TLCCA), representing Baxter Healthcare, Slade Health, and Wesley Pharmacy clearly demonstrates their value to cancer patients and health care more broadly, and the urgent need for the Federal Government to provide the funding needed to ensure timely and equitable access to compounded cancer medicines for all Australians.
About the Report:
The report by Shawview Consulting, "Providing Equality and Quality for Patients: The Importance of TGA-Licensed Compounders in Enabling Timely and Equitable Access to Complex Cancer Medications in Australia" demonstrates that TGA-licensed compounders are:
- Critical to Patient Care: Alongside non-licensed compounders, licensed compounders are critical in ensuring timely and equitable access to cancer medicines in Australia.
- Critical to Rural, Regional and Remote Australia: Licensed compounders play a critical role in ensuring patients in rural, regional and remote areas, who otherwise would have had to travel long distances, can access the same quality of cancer treatment close to home.
- Critical to the Broader Healthcare System: Licensed compounders support two in every three cancer treatments to patients in Australia through their Australia-wide network of state-of-art licensed facilities, highly trained workforce, and reducing the pressure on the strained hospital sector which faces skilled workforce shortages and budget constraints.
- Face an unsustainable funding shortfall: Federal Government remuneration for licensed compounders has not changed since its establishment in 2015 ($20 compounding fee per dose) with licensed compounders having to absorb significant additional costs driven largely by increased regulatory and compliance requirements.
The TLCCA is working with the Federal Government to address this funding shortfall as a matter of urgency, with the Shawview report providing compelling evidence of the benefits to patients and the importance of a well-functioning cancer care ecosystem underpinned by a sustainable national network of TGA-licensed
com pounders.
More information:
To read the Shawview Consulting report, 'Providing Equality and Quality for Patients: The Importance of TGA-Licensed Compounders in Enabling Timely and Equitable
Access to Complex Cancer Medications in Australia', please click here.
About the TLCCA
The TLLCA is the industry group representing Australia's TGA-licensed chemotherapy compounders, Baxter Healthcare, Slade Health, and Wesley Pharmacy. The TLCCA's members compound more than 60% of cancer medicine infusions in Australia, including the vast majority of those supplied in rural, regional and remote areas.