Is Pharmac improving?

Russell Hutchinson checks back on two desperate families who sought to raise money to buy non-funded drugs to see how they got on.

Thursday, July 10th 2025, 10:48AM

by Russell Hutchinson

The new government campaigned on a platform to increase access to medicines currently not funded by Pharmac and this theme has always been popular with the media.

Stories of desperate families hoping to save or extend the life of a loved one are heartrending. Two stories I followed last year, I checked back on.

Both stories highlighted the immense financial strain that cancer treatment places on families.

In the first, a family is trying to raise $100,000 to fund the combination of Ipilimumab and Keytruda to prolong his life by two years.

In the second, friends and family faced raising $175,000 for Enhertu, a treatment for breast cancer.

Both turned to fundraising, family, loans, and personal savings to cover treatments not fully funded.

As I did my follow ups, I discovered that one of the people in the story has died, the other is in care and treatment has been suspended.

These are both people with children in what would have been the prime of life.

This is who we want to help.

Pharmac now does fund Enhertu. That’s a win.

As funding within Pharmac has been switched from Covid-related spending, and budget has increased, more medicines should be funded.

Having noted that, we also know that these challenges will be perennial – there will always be new medicines that offer hope, even if it is limited, to those with life threatening conditions, and that not all of them can be funded. Governments always find that there are limits to budgets.

We do wonder at an investment-based approach.

Take another story, for example: I recently picked up an article about a young man who is faced with profound blindness, which could probably be prevented with the use of an expensive new medicine.

I’m thinking: he’s young, some sight versus none could be the difference between independence, and work, and dependence and a long-term benefit.

As a parent, and a taxpayer, my natural desire to see help given is reinforced by the possibility that there’s a positive investment case. The medicine, however, is not funded by Pharmac.

For context, I mention also that it is Medsafe approved.

What also surprised me in all these cases was that there was little or no mention of insurance – there usually is.

We have often argued that in a time when many insurers struggle to get traction with marketing efforts (even if that’s not about making direct sales but rather supporting advisers) health system subjects and new medicines are an opportunity to step into the spotlight.

That absence of insurers is an opportunity for advisers, of course.

Tags: Pharmac