Novartis adds nine new treatments under Pharmac deal

Novartis adds nine new treatments under Pharmac deal

By Paul McBeth

Oct. 10 (BusinessDesk) - Novartis New Zealand, the local unit of the global pharmaceuticals firm, has added nine new treatments in a far-ranging agreement with government drug buying agency, Pharmac.

The Pharmaceutical Management Agency will fund new treatments for multiple sclerosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic myeloid leukaemia, asthma, cystic fibrosis, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's in the drug buying agency's widest ranging single agreement, Pharmac and Novartis said in a joint statement. The terms of the agreement are confidential, though the nine new treatments add to Novartis's 30 or so existing medicines and treatments currently funded.

"When there are new products involved, it really helps to improve our performance as a business, what we don't want is to have lots of old products in our portfolio, we want to have new products," Novartis country group manager Tim Jones told BusinessDesk. "That's important for both patients and clinicians too, because the new technology products tend to be more efficacious, or may have less side effects than the older treatments."

Jones said the deal was more than six months in the making, and came about as a result of the company's regular submissions to get the new drugs approved, and regular talks with the drug buying agency.

"It seemed to me that it was in both our interests, Novartis and for Pharmac, to reach a broader-based deal in this case," Jones said. "It's such a good thing to see that we can actually work together - there's a lot of negativity in the press around the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and Pharmac and we don't believe that's positive."

Pharmac added 26 pharmaceuticals to its schedule and widened access to 35 others in the 12 months ended June 30, and flagged a planned combined pharmaceutical budget of $800.2 million over the period, according to its latest performance data.

Novartis estimates the new treatments could benefit as many as 300,000 New Zealanders who suffer from the various ailments targeted by the drugs.

The local unit of the pharmaceutical company generated a net profit of $3.3 million in calendar 2013 on revenue of $59.7 million, according to financial statements lodged with the Companies Office.

Novartis's Jones said the broad market is still constrained by wider economic factors, with a little more growth in health spending than in other parts of the market.

"I guess it's how it's being spent, and from my view this sort of deal is how we can ensure we get new products to patients in time," he said.

(BusinessDesk)

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