Exclusive data collaboration between The Green Fund and Freshleaf Analytics
Record growth continues
It’s worth remembering how far the Australian market has come in just the last 12 months. In October 2018, there were 331 approvals. That’s an increase of over 985% in the last year. But beyond the headline figures, some interesting trends are emerging.
In April 2019, QLD amended their patient access process making it easier for doctors to write prescriptions. So since April, almost all QLD doctors have only required Federal approval, speeding up processing times and reducing paperwork.
This had an almost immediate impact on the number of QLD approvals. Although we saw modest monthly increases across all States/Territories this year, QLD went from 284 approvals in February to 1,311 approvals in August. A 361% increase. Over the same time period, NSW went from 246 to 739, a 200% increase, despite having a much larger population. QLD is also well serviced with a variety of access clinics, which would have contributed to this relative increase.
The next State to watch will be NSW. Similar to QLD, doctors in NSW used to require additional State approval before they could prescribe. This was a time-consuming process that caused a lot of frustration for patients and doctors alike. But in September, NSW went the way of QLD and scrapped this additional approval. And if NSW behaves as QLD did, this should have a major impact on the number of approvals being issued. Although it will probably take a few months for this trend to emerge.
