Publish papers. The paper that was written can form part of your thesis indirectly and examiners will love you cause they don't have to scrutinise your already-peer-reviewed work.

@Critical_Fallacy Love your posts, always so illustrated

I'm with the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and publishing papers are not required here for graduation. That said, of course your research group wants you to publish and all students tend to publish anyway, some in rather high impact journals!