27 January 2022
Adam Irish
Via email: [FYI request #17746 email]
Tēnā koe Adam
Request for information: Preventing bias when considering medicines for funding
Thank you for your request dated 9 December 2021 under the Official Information Act 1982
(OIA) for questions relating to assessment bias towards new medicines, particularly
regarding the new Pfizer antiviral medicine and ivermectin. You wrote:
What systems are in place to ensure that Pharmac doesn't suffer from confirmation bias,
group think or a preference towards new medications vs existing licensed expired
medicines that aren't supported for an application, due to them being inexpensive.
For example it appears that Pharmac rely on an application for approval of medicines for
a different, and if a medicine is out of patient a private pharmaceutical company would
have a much larger incentive to make a new drug than prove the efficacy of a preexisting
in-expense drug. And as such would not put in an application or do additional research to
make the case for it. The pharmaceutical companies would also have a direct incentive to
actively discredit or promulgate mistrust of studies that weren't to their financial interests
and create a public narrative to support that.
Can New Zealanders have confidence that large pharmaceutical companies which
sponsor and fund a significant amount of US media have not deliberately promulgated a
narrative of mistrust around the drug Ivermectin. As this looks like it would be financially
ruinous to its new Pfizer antiviral, PF-07321332, can New Zealand have confidence that
the US media and its media narrative that the drug is just a 'horse medicine' or only for
the treatment of parasites has not negatively influenced its assessment as a useful drug
in combating Covid-19.
And is our application based system fit for purpose, or does it relies too much on private
companies initiating the process. How much do our Pharmac assessors and the Ministry
rely on just maintaining a status quo based on overseas decisions where their
assessments and scientific assessments may not be completely impartial?
The new Pfizer antiviral, PF-07321332 appears to have the same function as a protease
as Ivermectin but as Ivermectin is out of patient and significantly cheaper this could be
significantly more adventitious. Has an updated assessment taken place on either of
these drugs and are they approved for use in the treatment of Covid-19?
The information in the below video is gathering more attention:
https://youtu.be/ufy2AweXRkc
In it Dr. John Campbell appears to be making some compelling claims for the use of
Ivermectin, has Pharmac and the Ministry of Health assessed the studies he has cited in
relation to an assessment of Ivermectin?
2021-22-067; A1553044
How Pharmac works
Pharmac is the agency that decides which medicines are funded in New Zealand. Our
statutory directive is to get the best health outcomes that are reasonably achievable from
within the available funding. We also manage the fixed budget (Combined Pharmaceutical
Budget) for those medicines.
Medsafe is the authority responsible for evaluating and assessing therapeutic products for
use in New Zealand. Generally, before a medicine is funded by Pharmac it needs to be
approved by Medsafe.
To learn more about how Pharmac works, and how Pharmac makes funding decisions using
Factors for Consideration please visit our website: https://pharmac.govt.nz/about/what-we-
do/how-pharmac-works/
Ivermectin
We have previously responded to questions about ivermectin. Please refer to our website for
information about why we are not considering ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19.
30 Nov 2021 | OIA Response | Why we are not using ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-
19 - Pharmac | New Zealand Government
We trust that this information answers your queries. We are making our information more
freely available, so we now publish selected OIA responses (excluding personal details) on
our website. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this.
Yours sincerely
Rachel Read
Manager, Policy and Government Services
2021-22-067; A1553044
qA60833
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