Australians pay unjustified dispensing fees because the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, the main pharmacy owners’ lobby, negotiates billion-dollar funding deals behind closed doors with minimal transparency, the Grattan Institute has concluded. The think-tank’s report, released on 12 July, says that the guild’s influence has doubled members’ profits over the past decade while blocking efforts to establish the real cost of dispensing medicines. A scheduled additional patient charge and the phase-out of a $1 discount on subsidised medicines will further boost pharmacy revenues, the report warns.

The dynamic mirrors long-standing concerns over pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in the United States, where three vertically integrated conglomerates — CVS Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx — control 80% of prescriptions. A 2025 Federal Trade Commission report found the big three PBMs paid their own pharmacies up to 7,736 per cent more than unaffiliated competitors for common drugs. Meanwhile, six of America’s 15 most valuable companies are ‘Big Medicine’ conglomerates that posted combined profits of $34 billion last year, even as legislative efforts to curb PBM practices stalled after opposition from industry and, at one point, Elon Musk.

The hunt for value in other sectors is proving equally ephemeral. An analysis by the Financial Times shows at least 27 US-listed companies have renamed themselves to incorporate AI since 2023, from shoemakers to cancer researchers. Their combined market capitalisation initially jumped 106 per cent, but more than half of those gains had evaporated by end-June 2026, with seven groups worth less than before their rebrand. Analysts in London and Boston point to retail investors’ susceptibility to buzzword-driven price spikes, a pattern previously seen during the dot-com era.

Innovation in women’s health is gaining momentum as the $360 billion market addresses menopause after two decades of neglect. The FDA’s rollback of long-standing warnings on hormone replacement therapy has accelerated the shift. Yet clinicians and consumer groups caution that the rapid growth is flooding the market with unproven wellness products, making it difficult for women to identify evidence-based treatments.

The next test for healthcare funding comes in Australia, where the federal government will soon negotiate a new five-year Community Pharmacy Agreement. The Grattan report calls for an overhaul to base payments on transparent cost benchmarks, a step that would bring the pharmacy sector in line with other major health funding arrangements.