Critical drugs could be pulled from PBS amid pricing stoush

Jaimie Rose Sheil fears treatment for her life-threatening condition is at risk. (Supplied: Jaimie Rose Sheil)

There are fears thousands of Australians will be left without lifesaving medication because of a PBS stoush between drugmakers and the federal government.

Advocates and patients have warned losing access to key MS medications could cost people their lives.

The federal government's PBS advisory committee will meet today to discuss the price of the medications.

A dispute over how Australia prices medicines has sparked fears 10,000 people with multiple sclerosis will be forced to pay up to $33,000 a year to access life-changing treatments.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee will meet today to discuss the price of two medicines used to treat MS and related conditions currently subsidised by the federal government, after drugmakers rejected a request to slash the cost by up to 50 per cent.

MS advocates and patients have warned losing subsidised access to the "very effective" drugs, known commercially as Ocrevus and Kesimpta, would cost some people their lives.

Health Minister Mark Butler has declared he wants the medicines to remain on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and has linked the dispute with global drugmakers Roche and Novartis to changes in US policy.

Mark Butler, pictured at an MS Australia event in 2025, says he wants Ocrevus and Kesimpta to remain on the PBS. (Supplied)

Australia's PBS system, which Roche has criticised as "archaic", categorises medicines by grouping different drugs that provide similar safety and health outcomes together.

The cheapest drug in that group then acts as a benchmark price for the rest.

The PBS listing late last year of a third therapy, sold under the brand name of Briumivi at a substantially lower cost, triggered a pricing review of other medicines in the same group, like Ocrevus and Kesimpta.

The ABC understands selling those two commonly used therapies at the lower price would require a 40 to 50 per cent cost cut, which the drugmakers have argued is commercially unsustainable.

Pharmaceutical companies are also increasingly sensitive to accepting lower prices overseas because the US is pursuing a "most favoured nation" policy that links American drug prices to those paid in comparable countries.

The political stoush over PBS pricing battles is deeply personal for Melbourne content creator Jaimie Rose Sheil, who has a related MS condition called neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and uses a wheelchair.

Like MS, the autoimmune condition targets the nervous system and can cause spinal