10 June 2019
To: Ronan Whyte (by email)
Copy to: Ombudsman’s Office (by email)
Dear Mr Whyte,
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
This letter relates to your request to PHARMAC in March last year under the Official
Information Act (OIA) for information on bioavailability and pharmacodynamic studies for
venlafaxine. At the time we declined to release the information you requested as we
considered there was good reason to withhold it under section 9(2)(ba)(i) of the OIA, which
concerns information provided on a confidential basis. As you were entitled to, you
subsequently made a complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman regarding our response.
As part of the complaint process we responded to the Ombudsman’s Office. In doing so, we
acknowledged that there was a clear public interest in the release of an appropriate level of
information publicly with appropriate context and gave our view that Medsafe, working with
the relevant supplier, was best placed to do this. In the time since you made the OIA
request, Medsafe has released a significant amount of the information. This information is
available on Medsafe’s website:
https://medsafe.govt.nz/publications/OIA/27SeptRequestForBioequivalenceStudyForEnlafax
XR.pdf
In light of the above release by Medsafe, we have reviewed our decision to withhold the
information in question. Please see attached a copy of the document we previously withheld
(which is the only information PHARMAC holds within scope of your request) and which is
now largely in the public domain. You will see that a small number of redactions remain – we
are continuing to withhold the redacted information in reliance on section 9(2)(ba)(i) of the
OIA as explained in our previous response to you.
Please let us know if you have any further queries.
Yours sincerely
Alison Hill
Director, Engagement and Implementation
A1272327 - qA46577
Document Outline
