Analysis: Why has the price of this cancer medicine risen and fallen by over a thousand percent since 2016?

Posted in: Access to Medicines, Healthcare system, Latest

Lenalidomide is an important medicine used for the treatment of multiple myeloma – a type of bone marrow cancer that is not curable and typically requires long-term, ongoing treatment. Over the last decade, the price of this drug has fluctuated dramatically in South Africa and patients and their doctors have gone to extreme lengths to access it. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the remarkable recent history of lenalidomide.

Analysis: Why has the price of this cancer medicine risen and fallen by over a thousand percent since 2016?

IN-DEPTH: The tangled web of medical device regulation in SA

Posted in: Latest

South Africa does not currently register medical devices. So what does it mean when the regulator announces that a new COVID-19 test or ventilator has been authorised? Catherine Tomlinson unpacks what is required to market a medical device in South Africa.

IN-DEPTH: The tangled web of medical device regulation in SA

South Africa has a new medicines regulator

Posted in: Latest

The board of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has held its first meeting, thus officially bringing SAHPRA into existence. This means that South Africa’s old regulatory authority, the Medicines Control Council, no longer exists.

South Africa has a new medicines regulator

Opinion: Return of the quacks

Posted in: Free State, Spotlight, Spotlight Edition 3

For a long time, South Africa has been a country where charlatans are able to flourish and peddle dangerous remedies for all kinds of ailments.

A new dawn for medicines regulation in South Africa

Posted in: Access to Medicines, Latest, Sections, Spotlight

The MCC will soon be replaced by the South African Health Products Authority (SAHPRA). Spotlight asked MCC registrar Dr Joey Gouws and MCC chairperson Professor Helen Rees about changes at South Africa’s medicines regulator.