28 May 2019 - An endocrinologist says New Zealand's type 2 diabetes drugs are 'third world'. Why won't Pharmac fund the medicines experts want?

Many developed countries have been publicly funding three new classes of drugs to treat type 2 diabetes for the past five to 10 years. The first class are gliptins, the second class are the GLP-1 agonists and the third class are flozins. These drugs might sound like droids from a sci-fi movie, but actually help manage blood sugar control with less risk of hypoglycemia and weight gain than insulin. Orr-Walker calls them "game changers".

PHARMAC has repeatedly turned down applications to fund these drugs. It funded one of them in 2004, but it was another 14 years until it funded another. The way PHARMAC went about funding the latter drug, last year, left Orr-Walker asking whether PHARMAC was more about commerce than health and science. The drug it funded was vildagliptin, and it funded it because of a key tool in PHARMAC's commercial negotiating playbook, known as bundling.

Read Radio New Zealand article