CANBERRA, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Australian cancer patients are waiting up to five years for life-saving medicine under a government scheme.

According to data released by Medicines Australia on Monday, cancer medications take 610 days on average to be approved for government subsidy under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and one cancer medicine took 1,801 days.

By comparison it takes 462 days on average for other medicines to be approved for subsidy; four times longer than Japan where the average is just 89 days.

The top 10 countries with similar schemes fund the subsidy of new medicines within 181 days on average.

Sanchia Aranda, chief executive of the Cancer Council of Australia, told News Corp Australia that drug companies were responsible for the delays.

“Unfortunately, the main reason for the delay is the exorbitant prices set by the drug companies,” she said.

Medicines can only be subsidized by the government under the PBS after an independent panel decides that it is cost effective to do so. Drug companies that set high prices for their product prolong the process.

Of the 16 cancer medications, the expert committee will consider for approval in July, 12 have already been rejected at least once.

In 2017, the Australian government reached a deal with medicine companies that allowed it to cut PBS funding by 1.8 billion Australian dollars (1.26 billion U.S. dollars).

In return, the government promised to halve the average number of applications a company had to make before its product was subsidized from three to 1.5.

However, Medicine Australia chief executive Elizabeth de Somer said that since that deal, the average time to approve subsidies has increased.

“I think it is very clear that savings measures are tangible and the government legislated them quickly but the reforms around the subsidy approval process seems to be taking a long time and we are struggling to see the benefits of that commitment,” she said.