16 May 2008

The informative, educational and entertaining feature article series dispelling myths about generic medicines have made Vital Health the winner of the 2008 Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) Award (Media category).

Winners across the awarded categories – media, the sub-category of trade media, student,health organisations and community organisations – were announced in Canberra last night.

The National QUM Awards are an initiative of the National Prescribing Service Limited (NPS) and the Pharmaceutical Health And Rational use of Medicines (PHARM) Committee to recognise the QUM achievements of a variety of programs and activities. The winners were announced as part of the biennial National Medicines Symposium (NMS), held this year in Canberra from May 14-16.

Senator the Hon Jan McLucas, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing, presented the Awards at the NMS 2008 dinner in Canberra. Journalist Geraldine Doogue was the MC.

The winning media entry was a series of four in-depth feature stories written to educate readers about generic medicines and to dispel commonly held misconceptions and concerns.

The story topics included: “What’s In a Name”, about why generic medications are just as effective as the brand medicine, explaining they undergo the same rigorous assessments and contain the same active ingredients; “Brave New World” looked at how the increase in generic medicines will impact the use of medicines in Australia; “Generics Update” highlighted the latest patent-expired active ingredients and the illnesses that they are used to treat. It also explained that a generic version of a medicine may be made once a patent has expired; and finally, “Life Savers” looked at the history of the PBS and how generic medicines use will impact on it.

Vital Health is published by Text Pacific Publishing for National Pharmacies, a South Australian-based organisation with pharmacies in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.

ENDS

National Prescribing Service Limited (NPS) is an independent, non-profit organisation for Quality Use of Medicines. We provide accurate, balanced, evidence-based information and services to help people choose if, when and how to use medicines to improve their health and wellbeing. We are member-based and work in partnership with health professionals, government, pharmaceutical industry and consumers. NPS is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.