PBS change will help more smokers quit
The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) has recommended the listing on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) of Champix® (varenicline) as a short-term treatment to help people stop smoking.
Given this advice, the listing of Champix® is expected from 1 January 2008.
The most common causes of smoking related mortality are chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease and cancers, especially of the mouth, throat and lung. Lung cancer is a particularly intractable malignancy and the majority of sufferers will succumb to the disease.
Ceasing smoking greatly reduces a person’s risk of dying from these illnesses and the reduction in risk is detectable after two years of abstinence.
About 194,700 additional people will commence Champix® for smoking cessation in the first full financial year of listing.
The listing of Champix® will add around $76.3 million to PBS and Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme expenditure between 2007-08 and 2010-11.
