Medsafe, Pharmac & the ongoing funding debate!

Approved drugs Keytruda Medsafe Pharmac

There has been a fair bit of media attention recently on Pharmac drug subsidies. In particular, the decision by Pharmac not to subsidise melanoma treatment drug Keytruda, has created outcry in some areas. With the current awareness of this type of issue in the public forum, we thought it timely to have a brief discussion around Medsafe, Pharmac, and what you can do to ensure you have the best possible access to various courses of treatment.

Medsafe is the authority in New Zealand responsible for the regulation on medicines in New Zealand, ensuring they are safe for use (and thereby allowing them to be used legally). Pharmac is the government agency that decides which pharmaceuticals to publicly fund; either fully funded or subsidise. While Pharmac covers the cost of many medications (around a third of Medsafe approved drugs), there are still a significant number which are not funded and many of these can be life-saving and expensive.

There is always going to be debate over Pharmac’s decisions, however they are charged with getting the best ‘bang for buck’. They try to fund drugs that will have the widest possible usage so that the maximum number of people can benefit. Unfortunately this will always mean that some very specific drugs, that are probably only going to be used by a smaller part of the population, will struggle for funding. The big problem is that there is only so much money to go around, and there are a fair few ‘newer’ drugs that cost a lot more, and aren’t necessarily yet proven to provide significantly better long-term benefits.

This is all probably irrelevant to most of the population, until such time as you or a loved one becomes ill, only to find that some ‘wonder drug’ is available and able to be used, but will not be subsidised. People will always naturally want the best chance at a full recovery, and will want to leave no stone unturned in this regard. Usually non-Pharmac subsidised drug treatments are so costly however, that most people simply can’t afford the treatment.

Some Health Insurers provide cover for non-Pharmac drugs and in this day and age, we believe it should be one of the most important factors when choosing a new provider or when reviewing your existing policy. If this is a concern to you, please feel free to get in touch with us and we are happy to discuss this further with you.