4 December 2018 - Yet another disappointing year in terms of patients in New Zealand being able to obtain subsidised access to new, patient protected medicines.

With the publication of the December 2018 update to the New Zealand Pharmaceutical Schedule, one can now conduct an analysis of the new medicines/vaccines/combination products that have been listed in the Schedule in 2018.

The analysis reveals the listing in 2018 of:

• 10 new patent protected medicines
  
• 1 new patient protected vaccine
  
• 2 new patent protected combination products
  
• 7 new patent protected indications
  

Of the 10 new patent protected medicines:

• All 10 are listed in the Australian Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits; two were first listed as far back as 2010
  
• Only 2 of the 10 medicines are for patients with cancer (cetuximab and ruxolitinib phosphate)
  
• Access to some medicines is very limited; sapropterin dihydrochloride is only funded for people (women?) with phenylketonuria and are pregnant or actively planning to become pregnant
  

None of the 7 new indications are for patients with cancer.

PHARMAC is yet to publish its review of 2018; it will no doubt present a much positive picture with many more listings than presented above.  This is because PHARMAC's sample will include the listing of 'new' patent expired medicines, as it has done in previous years.

Additional analyses will be published in upcoming issues of MAESTrO Daily.