Pharmacies will receive an extra $4.79 per 60-day script dispensed under a new funding agreement with the Federal Government, which has patched up its fractured relationship with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia.

It was just last year that the government and the guild had a public, tear-streaked falling-out over the decision to let GPs write double-length scripts for 325 medicines.

The government’s analysis suggested each pharmacy would lose $160,000 a year, the guild warned that 10% of pharmacies would close and pharmacist Luke Kelly wrote on AusDoc that pharmacies would be wiped out, in a story that attracted almost 300 comments.

And yet, on Tuesday, guild president Professor Trent Twomey stood alongside Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to announce “an agreement between the government and the pharmacy guild that delivers … cheaper medicines in a cost-of-living crisis”.