Medicinal cannabis approvals through the Special Access Scheme fell to a nine-month low in January, preliminary data from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has shown.
The regulator issued just under 8,800 SAS-B approvals, the lowest since April last year.
The vast majority, 7,300, were for Schedule 8 medicines, with S4 medicines making up the balance.
The figures, taken from the TGA’s medicinal cannabis dashboard, gave oil a 55% share, with flower accounting for approximately one-third of applications.
Inhalation – which is now split out separately having barely registered for most of 2021 – accounted for almost 9%.
There were 715 authorised prescribers in January.
Almost 4,000 approvals came from Queensland, followed by Victoria with 2,270, New South Wales with 1,620 and Western Australia with 890.
