Report claims Pharmac takes more than seven years to make decisions on new medicines
A report, Pharmac's Medicines Waiting Lists: Impacts on Patients in Aotearoa New Zealand, has claimed that Pharmac has an average waiting time of 7.7 years for applications across all Pharmac lists. The report was commissioned by Medicines New Zealand, a campaign group whose members are in the prescription medicines and vaccines industries.
Pharmac is the government agency that decides what medicines to fund and manages a fixed budget for those medicines. Pharmac need to decide which medicines to fund for the best health outcomes for New Zealanders – how improved people’s lives might be and for how long with the medicine; how much shorter or less healthy people’s lives would be without the medicine; and how a patient’s family will be affected by a funding decision.
Applications on the Options for Investment waiting list, which comprises applications that Pharmac have indicated they would like to fund, subject to budget, have been there for an average of 5.9 years. The report claims that the time taken to achieve funding decisions has increased in the last 2 years, with 39% of applications being funded within 20 months in 2020/21 compared to only 3% in 2021/22. One of the recommendations the report calls for is for Pharmac to establish a performance benchmark for the time taken to achieve funding decisions.
Some insurance companies offer access to Medsafe-approved, non-Pharmac funded medicines, like nib’s non-Pharmac Plus option.
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