To improve access to important medicine information, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) now publishes additional formulation details of medicines and biological products on its website.
This means anyone can check the ingredients contained in medicines, helping people make better-informed choices about the products they use.
Every therapeutic good approved for supply in Australia has an ARTG summary on the TGA website. Previously, these summaries only showed information about active ingredients, which are the ingredients responsible for a product's medicinal effect.
ARTG summaries for all medicines and biologicals now list both the active ingredients and non-active (excipient) ingredients. Excipient ingredients support the product through functions such as, for example, preserving, binding, flavouring or colouring the medicine.
You will be able to see if a product contains a flavour, fragrance or colour ingredient mix, but not the individual ingredients in that mix.
These medicines and biologicals have not changed - instead the TGA is increasing the transparency of this information to help consumers in their discussions with their health professionals.
You can find a medicine's ARTG summary by searching the TGA website using the product's name or the AUST number on the label.
