Under-fire Pharmac is defending the way it funds New Zealand's drugs, with the agency's director of operations, Lisa Williams, saying it's working on better openness and transparency with Kiwis about those decisions.
However, Breakfast host John Campbell this morning called out Williams' emotive language when she called Spinraza — a treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, a rare disorder in children — "extremely expensive" but then refused to share the cost.
Williams said when deciding what medicines to fund, Pharmac takes into account how sick patients are, the benefit the medicine offers, if there are medicines already funded for the same issue, and cost.
"We're not just all about the money — we're about the people. We want to make more medicines available for New Zealanders," she said.
"I think in that situation [Spinraza] we can't take the money out of it. ... When we're talking about extremely expensive drugs and we're having to make a choice between that medicine or another medicine, we need to make sure that we're making the right decision."
Kristie Yeoman moved to Australia so four-year-old Charlotte could get access to the drug Spinraza, which has allowed her to walk. (Source: Other)
However, Campbell said Biogen, the company which makes Spinraza, had come back to Pharmac seven times, presumably with a better offer.
"We don't know how much they're charging you, so you're using a phrase like 'extremely expensive' and we don't know whether it is or not. Can you tell me how much Spinraza would cost?" Campbell asked.
But Williams said the offers were confidential.
"So why did you use the phrase 'extremely expensive' then? It's an emotive and manipulative phrase, isn't it?" Campbell said, adding the statement gives Pharmac "a profound imbalance of power".
Williams responded: "The power in this situation is sitting with the pharmaceutical company who is telling us that we are not allowed to say the price that they're offering us".
She also said many of the drugs Pharmac considers are "very expensive".
"Just the very fact that New Zealanders are talking about them and wanting access to them and telling us that they can't afford them by themselves tells us that they are very expensive medicines," she said.
"New Zealanders shouldn't have to pay for medicines. We do have a system that aims to have publicly funded available treatments for them.
"So far this year we've funded 14 new medicines and widened access to 19 medicines, so every year Pharmac makes more medicines available for more New Zealanders."
The treatment drug Spinraza is available in 49 other countries, but not in New Zealand. (Source: Other)
When asked why Spinraza, which is funded in Australia, wasn't one of them given the difference it makes, Williams said it was a medicine Pharmac had on it's "shopping list".
"Often when people are talking about drugs that aren't funded they say that Pharmac's decided not to fund them but actually more often than not what's happened is we've put them on our shopping list of the things we would like to fund but we just need to wait until we've got enough money available to fund all of our shopping list," she said.
But Campbell pointed out that the EpiPen, an auto-injector device with a dose of adrenaline to treat allergic reactions, had been on that shopping list for over a decade.
Williams again defending Pharmac, saying the agency gets 40 to 60 applications for new medicines to be funded every year.
"There will always be more medicines than we can afford to fund," she said.
"We'll never say no to more money."
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