New brief for Monash health economics centre

Monash University's Centre for Health Economics has moved to new premises in the Science Technology and Innovation Precinct at Monash University's Clayton campus, and will be looking at setting up partnerships with industry for the first time.

Lynne Kosky, the Victorian minister for education and training, officially opened the premises today.

Established in 1990 as the Health Economics Unit, the Centre has changed its name and its director.

The founding director Prof Jeff Richardson - who will continue working with the Centre as a fellow - has been replaced by Prof Alan Shiell.

"By renaming ourselves as a centre, we're going to look outwards to make partnerships. Initially with other academics but also with health authorities and possibly industry," said Shiell.

Shiell said that the Centre is one of only four institutions that provide independent reviews of economic evaluations of costs for new drugs submitted by companies to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC). The Centre's reviews assist the PBAC in deciding whether to include a drug in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

The other three institutions which provide independent reviews are the School of Population at the University of Queensland, the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at Newcastle University and the School of Population Health at the University of Adelaide.

In the past the Centre has rarely made partnerships with industry, and in particular drug companies, due to possible conflicts of interest with its reviewing role.

However, Sheill said that while the focus is currently on boosting partnerships with other parts of the University and also overseas, there may be more industry links in the future, particularly if the Centre increases in size.