Exenatide, known under the brand name Bydureon will be subsidised under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme from early next month.
The federal government says it means patients who cannot manage their type-2 diabetes through lifestyle modifications and are required to inject themselves -- some many times a day -- can reduce the frequency of their treatment.
It estimates the new injection regimen will benefit around 20-thousand people, saving them more than $1,600 annually.
Health Minister Sussan Ley says type-2 diabetes costs the healthcare system one-billion-dollars-a-year and has contributed to over 900-thousand diabetes-related hospital admissions in the past 12 months.
She told the Nine Network it's hoped Exenatide will help prevent associated complications.
"If you need to give yourself injections for type-2 diabetes -- and not everyone with this condition does -- we are listing a medicine that allows you to do that just once a week, not twice a day, and in so doing keep type-2 diabetes under control, meaning a lot fewer long-term consequences. We have one of the highest rates of amputation for type-2 diabetes in the world and I really want to address that and turn that around, and help people manage the condition so that they don't end up with complications later on in life."
The Chief Executive of the national body Diabetes Australia, Greg Johnson, says the inclusion of Exenatide on the P-B-S is a significant development.
"This is a serious condition. It is underestimated by the public. They think it's easy - they hear lifestyle and think it's just easy - but it's not. This is a tough disease and it's expensive. It costs people a lot of money to try to manage diabetes. So, making new medicines like this, and innovative ways to give medicines affordable for Australians is incredibly important so they can actually use the medicines properly and then you'll get good diabetes management, and then you'll prevent things like blindness, amputations, heart attacks and strokes, and lots of hospitalisations. So, the flow-on benefits of having good treatments that people can actually use are wonderful."
The health minister says Indigenous Australians are five times more likely to die from diabetes-related causes than non-Indigenous people, and will particularly benefit from the government subsidy.
Associate Professor Neale Cohen from the Melbourne-based Baker I-D-I Institute is leading a pilot study of Exenatide in remote Northern Territory communities.
He says around 40 people from the towns of Yuendumu and Ti Tree will receive the treatment in combination with their existing medication.
Associate Professor Cohen hopes to see their health improve as a result.
"I would expect that because, I guess, compliance with medication or taking medication regularly in remote communites - there are a number of difficult issues associated with it - the ability to go once a week to clinical services and have medications with a long duration of action really has potential to improve outcomes."
Neale Cohen says diabetes affecting Indigenous Australians is among some of the worst health problems facing Australia.
He says, medical services in remote communities - where related incidence and mortality rates are higher -- don't have the capacity to adequately treat chronic health problems.
"I would certainly urge government to have a look at the funding of clinical services in remote communities. It is urgent that there are more people on the ground who are able to provide this sort of chronic disease managment that is absolutely essential. There is just a real lack of clinical capability on the ground in the remote services. That's one of the things we struggle with when we go remotely. Most of the time they're dealing with acute medicine and sick people and accidents etc. Managing a difficult chronic disease in patients who have generally low health literacy, and remembering that diabetes is largely an asymptomatic condition, so patients don't manage things in an organised way. All of these things are enormous challenges."
A number of oral diabetes-2 medications are also being added to the P-B-S.
The government says the listings are expected to be cost-neutral for the budget as they are an alternative to existing treatments.
That's in addition, it says, to a $70-million investment for new medicines to treat women with advanced cervical cancer and people suffering from the rare growth disease Acromegaly.
The federal opposition has welcomed the new listings, but health spokeswoman Catherine King says the government isn't being entirely honest about planned changes to the P-B-S.
Ms King says the health minister is still committed to a 2014 Coalition budget decision to increase P-B-S co-payments.
"She wants to make medicines unaffordable for a whole range of other patients. What this government is intending to do is increase the cost of the pharmaceutical benefits to every script by five dollars for general patients, and eighty cents for concessional patients."
