Selexipag listed on PBS for PAH
The oral therapy selexipag (Uptravi) is available on the PBS from 1 February for the treatment of people with pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) as combination therapy. The selective, prostacyclin receptor agonist is indicated as sequential add-on therapy in combination with an endothelin receptor antagonist (ERA) and/or phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor (PDE-5i) for patients with WHO Functional Class III or IV PAH. The listing was recommended by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) in July 2020, on the basis that selexipag would help overcome the limitations of daily activities and impaired quality of life with PAH, and especially avoid or reduce those associated with IV infusion of epoprostenol.
Honour for sleep medicine specialist
Respiratory physician and sleep medicine specialist Emeritus Professor Doug McEvoy has been named as a Member of the Order of Australia(AM) in the Australia Day Honours List for significant service to medical research, particularly to respiratory and sleep health. Professor McEvoy is the immediate past Director of the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health at Flinders University in South Australia and has been active in clinical sleep medicine practice and research for over 35 years. He was president of the Australasian Sleep Association and Chair of the Professional Standards Committee of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ).
Generic prescribing now the rule
New PBS rules requires medicines to be prescribed by active ingredient name rather than by brand name, except for a few exemptions. From 1 February, the Active Ingredient Prescribing policy requires the inclusion of active ingredients on all PBS and RPBS prescriptions, except for handwritten prescriptions; paper based medication charts in the residential aged care sector; products containing four or more active ingredients; and certain items where brand names should be specified for safety or practicality reasons – such as EpiPens. The exempt items are listed on the List of Medicines for Brand Consideration. The Department of Health says prescribers can still prescribe medicines by brand if clinically necessary, and the brand name will appear after the active ingredient. A prescriber may also still choose to disallow brand substitution. The changes will be incorporated into prescribing software but this cannot be set to automatically include brand names for every prescription.
Vitamin D has no benefit on respiratory infections
Routine vitamin D supplementation is unlikely to have a clinically relevant effect on acute respiratory tract infections in older people, an Australian study suggests. The findings come from a review of data from the D-Health trial in which almost 2600 people aged 60-80 received monthly doses of oral vitamin D (60 000 IU) or placebo for up to five years. Vitamin D did not reduce the incidence of upper respiratory infections though there was a slight reduction in the duration (half a day) and severity of symptoms. Writing in in Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology the study investigators concluded that there was likely to be little clinical benefit of vitamin D supplementation on acute respiratory tract infections in the general population.