Q+A: PHARMAC CEO Sarah Fitt interviewed by Corin Dann

PHARMAC CEO Sarah Fitt has signalled the drugs buying agency could look at ring-fencing a fund for new cancer drugs similar to a model used in the UK.

“The first version a couple years ago, they found that if they’d spent that money elsewhere in the NHS, they would have got five times better health outcomes for their population. They’ve since reviewed that cancer drug fund, and there’s a second version in place now, which we’re watching with interest.

There’s always a risk with separate funds – again, why would you have a separate fund for cancer and not for other conditions – so I think, again, we have to sort of be careful about looking at the wider population. But, certainly, we’re very interested in what comes out of the UK cancer fund – the second version.”

Sarah Fitt defended criticism that PHARMAC doesn’t fund drugs, particularly some newer cancer drugs, that people have access to in countries like Australia.

“We compared the funding of our medicines with Australia a couple of years ago, and we found that, yes, certainly, they do fund more medicines than us, but a lot of those medicines don’t actually add any clinical benefit. So you could be spending a lot of money on agents where you’re actually not getting better health outcomes and, as I said, you could be missing out.”

Sarah Fitt told TVNZ 1’s Q+A programme that the agency has significantly increased its spend on cancer medicines over the past couple of years, “we certainly want to spend money on these new medicines but as I said we have to be absolutely sure that the evidence stacks up and that we are making the right decisions.”

Ms Fitt says PHARMAC has committed to making decisions faster and will move to declining some applications to give people more certainty. She says the agency is open to an independent review.

Please find the full transcript attached.

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