Sandoz Australia, the supplier of the drug, recently asked the PBS to increase the price of the patches because the listed cost was no longer sustainable due to manufacturing costs increasing during the Covid-19 pandemic. When the request was refused, Sandoz announced it had requested the products be delisted from the PBS from June, a move that would make the patches available via private prescription only meaning patients would have to pay full price.
It prompted the Australasian Menopause Society, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the Endocrine Society of Australia to write a joint letter to the health minister Greg Hunt to urgently reconsider and to work with Sandoz to strike an agreement.