Cancer treatments top breakthrough medicines list, Australian study finds

A cure for cancer is still to be found but more new treatments have been approved for Australians with cancer than any other disease state, a new report has found. Cancer treatments accounted for 115 of the 795 medicines approved for use in Australia over the last decade, according to the Medicines Milestones: a decade of persistence, prevention and promise report released on Sunday.

“As an industry, we’re still working on that elusive cancer cure, but we are edging closer with every new treatment,” said Brendan Shaw from the Australian Medicines Industry, which commissioned the report, adding:“The good news is that new ways of treating people are continuing to emerge. Looking at the last ten years, we have medicines which are extending life expectancy, improving quality of life, and even preventing some diseases altogether.

Prevention of disease featured prominently in Australian medicines, with 57 new vaccine approvals. Vaccines that became available in the past 10 years include childhood vaccines on the National Immunization Program such as measles, mumps, rubella, polio, diphtheria and whooping cough. Others included meningococcal, cervical cancer, influenza, tetanus, smallpox and cholera.