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A campaigner for reform of Pharmac says pressure on the Government over its drug buying agency can’t let up now it has agreed to fund a critical cancer drug.
The agency has announced it has struck a deal with supplier Pfizer over Ibrance for women with advanced breast cancer.
The decision will affect about 2000 women now and up to 1000 new cases a year.
Malcolm Mulholland, whose wife Wiki needs the medicine, says it’s wonderful news.
But he says Pharmac needs more funding, with current New Zealand drug spending a third of the OECD average and many medicines unavailable here.
“We still need a reform of Pharmac. Pharmac needs a good injection of cash and in actual fact when you look back it has all come down to the dollar because the Government provided the additional $60 million and on the back of that they decided to fund Ibrance,” Mr Mulholland says.
He says it’s also great news Pharmac has agreed to fund three new classes of drugs for type 2 diabetes, which affects many Maori.
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