The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has launched a web-based dashboard to improve transparency and access to information on unapproved medicinal cannabis products obtained through the Special Access Scheme (SAS).

Featuring de-identified data, the Medicinal Cannabis Access Data Dashboard allows users to view SAS-A and SAS-B numbers through interactive graphs and filter by patient age range and gender, medicine schedule, application year, prescriber location and dosage form.

Updated monthly, it includes access data since 1992 when the TGA received its first known medicinal cannabis SAS application, although the majority of approvals have occurred since 2016. Sativex and Epidyolex are not included as they are approved products included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG).

The TGA website stresses that the approval and notification numbers do not equal the actual number of patients receiving medicines under the SAS due to repeat applications and approvals for multiple products.

It adds: “SAS applications contain de-identified patient information, so it is not possible for the TGA to report on individual patient numbers.”

“The TGA is committed to ongoing transparency and will release additional data sets in the future, including information on Authorised Prescriber (AP) applications and further data on the concentrations of active ingredients.”

A TGA spokesman told Cannabiz the AP data will be made available “as soon as the capability is ready” with the aim being to release phase two within the next six months, “depending on resourcing”.

He said the regulator is continuing to work on how concentrations of active ingredients will be reported and confirmed there will be no change to the data which may be requested under Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

In June, Cannabiz ran a Premium members-only webinar analysing data from nearly 120,000 SAS-B applications from January 2019 to April 2021, released by the TGA in response to a FOI request.

Prior to launching Cannabiz, Martin was co-founder and CEO of Asia-Pac’s leading B2B media and marketing information brand Mumbrella, overseeing its sale to Diversified Communications in 2017. A journalist...

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