Pharmac Minister David Seymour stops short of supporting law change amid drug-buying reform

Patient advocates are calling for the law dictating Pharmac’s main objectives to change but the minister responsible believes a shift towards buying drugs with a “whole of society” approach is possible without legislative intervention.

Pharmac Minister David Seymour on Wednesday met Medicines NZ chief executive Dr Graeme Jarvis to accept a report detailing the recommendations that emerged from the inaugural national medicines summit in April.

The report from the summit, hosted by Medicines NZ and Patient Voice Aotearoa, included six recommendations with its first calling for an amendment to the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022 to “ensure a focus on best health outcomes” and “enable the appropriate incorporation of societal benefit”.

Other recommendations included reviewing Pharmac’s Health Technology Assessment and decision-making process, funding more medicines and developing a “Medicines Strategy”.

Seymour had mentioned factoring in the societal benefit of Pharmac’s spending amid the Government’s increases to the agency’s funding, saying he wanted spending decisions to account for the long-term savings funding a drug could provide.

Patient advocates had long been concerned about Pharmac’s focus on cost containment, given the Pae Ora legislation stated one of the agency’s primary objectives was to secure the best outcomes “from within the amount of funding provided”.

Pharmac Minister David Seymour (front left) listens to Medicines NZ chief executive Dr Graeme Jarvis (front right). Photo / Adam Pearse

Seymour this week appeared open to changing the law but wanted to address the issue through other means first.

“As far as changing the law, we might do that, but what we’re doing at the moment is we’re just giving it a red hot try that increasing the budget that Pharmac gets on the justification that they’re going to have more whole-of-society impacts,” he said.

“I’ve set them a target to get a certain amount of extra money purely on that justification.

“If they manage to do that, then I think we might find that actually the law is not as constraining as we think. On the other hand, if it doesn’t work out so well, then maybe we will have to change the law.”

Seymour suspected he would know if his approach was effective in March when Budget 25 was being confirmed.

Jarvis told the Herald he was “prepared to wait and see on that”, saying he hoped the topic would be discussed at a potential second summit.

On the merits of a “whole-of-society” approach, Seymour referenced conversations with experts in Christchurch last week who, by way of an example, told him the cost of schizophrenia to the economy was in the “realm of about $8 billion”.

“The entire Pharmac budget is only about $1.6 billion so you can see how more medication might actually save other costs to the economy and to the Government,” Seymour said.

Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.