Over time, the approved therapeutic uses of prescription medicines registered on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) can change.
Changes commonly include 'new uses' or 'extended uses'. A new use is where an already registered medicine is approved for an additional therapeutic use. An extended use is where an already registered medicine is approved to treat a broader range of patients, e.g. a wider age range. New or extended uses are called 'extensions of indications'. By contrast, a 'new combination' is where two or more already registered medicines are combined into a single product.
The decision to approve an 'extension of indications' or 'new combination' for already registered prescription medicines follows a comprehensive review by TGA scientists and clinicians on the quality, safety and efficacy of the proposed use of the medicine.
Throughout the year, we will be publishing information relating to new or extended uses, or new combinations of registered prescription medicines on the TGA website.
The trade name, active ingredient, and sponsor for each medicine reflects the information entered into the ARTG when the new or extended use was first approved. This webpage provides a summary of the newly added indications; for a full list of each medicine's registered indications, please refer to the Product Information database.
Once an application has been accepted for evaluation by TGA, the approval time is defined as the number of TGA working days between commencement of evaluation and registration decision. TGA works to business target timeframes as well as to legislated timeframes for each category of application. Approval times are underpinned by legislation (see Therapeutic Goods Regulations 1990) and excludes public holidays, weekends, the time allocated to the sponsor to respond to requests for information, 'mutual clock stop' periods agreed with the sponsor, or other review activities.
Approval times are reported in the number of TGA working days for each new registration, along with the legislated timeframe (unless otherwise indicated) for that category of application in brackets.
Registration process
Orphan drug: sponsors receive a fee waiver to help bring medicines for a small population to market
Priority review: involves faster TGA evaluation of vital and life-saving medicines for which a complete data dossier is available
Provisional registration: involves early access to vital and life-saving medicines through time-limited registration
Prescription medicines registrations database from 2018 onwards
Visit our Prescription medicines registrations database to see registrations for new or extended uses, or new combinations of registered medicines by year, from 2018 onwards.
Prescription medicines registrations