Health Minister Dr Shane Reti (left) and Associate Health Minister David Seymour. Photo / Mark Mitchell
It may have taken a month to get there, but the Government has fulfilled its pre-election promise to fund new cancer drugs.
It is committing $604 million to fund 54 new medicines, including up to 26 cancer treatments.
National’s commitment to fund 13 specific cancer drugs hasn’t been fully met with up to seven listed in its 2023 policy included in the funding package with the others replaced by “alternatives just as good or better”, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti said.
It’s hoped the promised cancer drugs will be rolled out within the next year and a half – with the first becoming available in October. Reti estimated the new treatments will benefit about 175,000 people in the first year.
University of Auckland Professor, Dr Paula Lorgelly, told The Front Page the National Party should never have promised funding in the first place.
“As soon as you’ve indicated that you want to fund a drug then that company now knows that Pharmac won’t be hard-price negotiating with them, right?
“It’s like if you want to buy a used car. We already know we want to buy it, but we’re not going to tell the used car salesperson what we want to pay for it straight up. We’re going to start negotiating.
“You don’t show your hand in that situation, and what the Government did is it showed its hand and it left Pharmac in that really precarious situation, and the only [beneficiary] was going to be the pharmaceutical industry.
“It may be costing us more than if they had instead given Pharmac the money and not named any drugs,” she said.
Instead of the initial 13 cancer drugs promised, Pharmac’s received funding for up to 54 medicines - and although the agency’s drug ‘wish-list’ is confidential, the move gives us insight into where drugs were placed on that list.
“Given they’re having to provide money for up to 54 drugs, of which only 26 are for cancer, it would suggest that some of those newly funded cancer drugs were lower on that list, which would suggest that they weren’t given the priority that people thought they should have been given.”
A review of Pharmac in 2022 made 33 recommendations with a focus on the agency’s governance and accountability, its decision-making, and a call for a closer look at cancer medicines and rare disorders.
Lorgelly doesn’t think much has changed since then to make the agency’s process more transparent.
“It’s a slow-moving agency. It’s kind of like trying to turn the Titanic,” she said. “I have been looking into the evidence they do produce and it’s very scant.
“I think it’s been highlighted that there is a need for change and they’re well aware of it. But I suspect what’s happening within Pharmac is that they’re spending their day job trying to review medicines and they don’t have enough headspace to actually think about how to change the way that we review medicines.
“I would hope that in some of this new funding they’ve received, gives them a little bit of space in which to change the way they operate.”
The seven cancer drugs in National’s policy that would be funded were:
The 28 non-cancer-related drugs would address various conditions likely to include infections, respiratory conditions, osteoporosis, sexual health, dermatology, inflammatory conditions, and mental health.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about how Pharmac works and how it can be improved.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Huge crowds gathered at Christchurch's Bridge of Remembrance and crossed over Auckland's Harbour Bridge on Wednesday.