Don’t import PHARMAC
October 10, 2013
Medicines Australia ceo
Brendan Shaw has highlighted
a range of shortcomings of NZ’s
PHARMAC model, saying that
“while New Zealand has exported
many good things to Australia, its
system of funding medicines should
not be one of them”.
Speaking yesterday at a Medicines
New Zealand conference in
Auckland, Shaw said that New
Zealand is consistently one of the
worst performing OECD countries
in international comparisons of
consumer access to new medicines.
He cited a lack of choice and
availability of new therapies for
Kiwi consumers, with about 77
medicines subsidised here which
are not covered in New Zealand.
“Even with the delays of new
medicines in Australia, it takes
two years longer to get a medicine
reimbursed in New Zealand”.
Shaw also said that the PHARMAC
model is less transparent than in
Australia, with NZ clinicians and
consumers complaining about
being left in the dark about how,
why and when a medicine may or
may not be reimbursed.
He said that Medicines Australia
is concerned at a “reverence by a
handful of academics for the New
Zealand model” which had focused
only on cost and not the full
package of what PHARMAC brings.
“At a time when we are dealing
with an ageing population,
Australia needs a system that
provides consumers and doctors
with more choice, more treatment
options and more new medicines,
not less,” he said.
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