Pharmac will receive an additional $604 million over
four years to fund or widen access to more medicines,
including up to 26 cancer treatments.
The funding
will also cover medicines for other conditions, totalling up
to an estimated 54 new or widened access medicines. The next
step for Pharmac involves working through the medicines
on its Options for Investment (OFI) list to determine which
medicines to progress. It will then begin negotiating with
suppliers, and consulting publicly.
The SMC asked
experts to comment.
Professor Paula Lorgelly,
Professor of Health Economics, University of Auckland,
comments:
“This an important step to
improving the health of both cancer patients and many other
patients needing access to medicines. Importantly, it
attempts to mediate any political undermining of the robust
Pharmac evaluation process. Although it must be acknowledged
that naming the drugs that will be funded does undermine
some of the bargaining power of Pharmac.
“The
funding seeks to address the waiting list for medicines,
Pharmac’s Options for Investment list. It does not take
away the fact that we will always have a waiting list for
medicines, this is because Pharmac has a fixed budget, and
New Zealanders’ needs and wants will always outstrip the
budget available. Minister Seymour noted that this will be a
significant task for Pharmac, and I hope to see some funding
in the budget for operationalising this uplift. Pharmac
staff now have a huge task ahead of them negotiating prices
and securing supply contracts.
“Te Whatu Ora will
also need to be resourced to deliver these new treatments.
The news today of hiring freezes and growing vacancies is at
odds with a pharmaceutical budget
boost.”
Conflict of interest statement:
“Provided advice to Pharmac and in the past have consulted
to various pharmaceutical
companies.”
Professor Christopher
Jackson, Professor of Oncology, University of Otago,
comments:
“Seven new medicines available
this year with up to 26 available in the next 12 months is
the largest number of new cancer medicines announced in one
go. This is huge news for patients affected by
cancer.
“It is also excellent to see that PHARMAC
will be used to obtain these medicines, and not bypassed, as
would have happened if National’s policy was implemented
as was originally intended.
“I said at the time that
National were wrong to bypass PHARMAC and I’m pleased
they’re changed their position.
“There is a real
risk contained in the policy though – and that is capacity
of the health system to cope. Already cancer services up and
down the country are stretched and many have waiting lists.
If these drugs are funded without more money for staff and
services then we will see wait times for cancer treatments
grow, and we could see a major unintended consequence of a
blow-out of people waiting to receive treatment.
“It
would be a tragedy if all of a sudden we have more cancer
drugs to offer people, but no doctors or nurses to deliver
them. We need urgent clarity on how we will staff the system
that is set to grow bigger than ever before.”
No
conflicts of
interest.
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