Recent reductions to generic drug prices should go deeper as more generic alternatives become available with the expiration of many medicine patents over the next few years, a health economist writes in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Professor Phillip Clarke says the government’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is paying subsidies higher than the real cost of medicines and wider price cuts must be enforced.

For example, the drug Atorvastin, which goes off patent in May, will continue to cost $50 a script, compared with $5 in New Zealand.