David Seymour: ACT Party leader on Pharmac proposing to improve access to type 2 diabetes medicines

Associate Health Minister David Seymour welcomes Pharmac’s proposal to change funding criteria for more type 2 diabetes medicines based on clinical need.

Under the proposal, 25,000 more diabetic Kiwis will gain access to the treatments over the next few years.

David Seymour says there's a lot of potential in investing in more GLP-1 medications to prevent other health problems impacting people down the line.

"We've made a lot of progress on this kind of whole of society approach to funding medicines that will save us money in the long term, but that's some of the challenges we've run into so far." 

Pharmac has since confirmed the ethnicity criteria reference refers to the diabetes medicine consultation and they have separate recommendations for semaglutide funding applications.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now let's turn to the old devil jabs that make
your skinny. Farmac has announced its planning to make GLP
one like ozepic more widely available for people with diabetes.
Under the proposal, twenty five thousand more diabetic key weis
will gain access to the drugs over the next few years.
David Seymour is the Minister for FARMAC and with us Hi, David, now,
is this just for people who already have diabetes or

(00:23):
is this also going to catch people who are too
fat who may well develop diabetes.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
So without calling anyone too fat, FARMAK are assessing two
applications and at least one of them is for obesity.
So it's both of those things. And as for where
FARMAC get to with that assessment, obviously you know I'm
not trying to influence them, but nonetheless that there's clearly
a lot of potential investing in these types of drugs

(00:53):
to prevent other health problems down the line.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Right, So, so those people would not necessarily have diabetes,
it's in case they develop diabetes.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah, So, as I understand.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
The BMI have to be for the to be eligible
for this.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, again, I don't want to I don't. I don't
have the full briefing from FARMAC as far as what
they consider, and part of that is because they are
eventually if they if they funded in a negotiation with
the novn artists of the world to procure it, so

(01:28):
that they try not to play cards with poker on
their table. So not going to say what your BMI
had to be, for example, But that's the kind of
thing they're looking at.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Okay, but it's going to be very small proportion of
people who would be overweight, right because the number of
people in this country whose BMI actually does qualify them
for a prescription is enormous, isn't it. It's like hundreds
of thousands of people.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, well it's that's what the UK have done, and
you know they've obviously made their choice. But it is
true that you can spend an enormous amount of money
and there are two basicues with paying it back. Number
one is that if you stop people developing diabetes well
into the future, then that is going to save the

(02:12):
taxpayer money on things like dialysis in about ten years time.
And it's quite challenging the way that our current government
budgeting process works to capture those sorts of benefits today.
That's number one and number two our healthcare system. When
it comes to accounting for the costs of things like
putting a person on dialysis, they don't do what they

(02:33):
call price and volume funding. So it's actually difficult to
make the case that you're saving money if they don't
know what things cost. So I'm not trying to make excuses,
but we've made a lot of progress on this kind
of whole of society approach to funding medicines that will
save us money in the long term. But that's some
of the challenges that we're running to so far, and

(02:53):
it just means we've got to keep fixing those things.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
What is the ethnicity based eligibility criteria that have been.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Removed, Well, previously there's been applicability where if you know
Mari or Pacific, then that becomes a factor and whether
you get considered. The government has a need not race policy,
and what we've found is that generally, if you look
at most illnesses, they don't actually disproportionately affect people because

(03:24):
of their race. They affect people because of their age,
because of their body mass index, perhaps because of their habits.
Those things are usually will help you catch people who
have just the same amount of risk but are a
different race, without lumping a whole lot of people in
together just because they happen to be mari, which I

(03:46):
am strongly opposed to as a concept.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Ye fair enough, okay, and listen thoughts on air New
Zealand and it's projected loss.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well, the in New Zealand love to be an icon
of New Zealand in the best of times. Unfortunately, I
think they have to wear that in the worst of times.
And in many ways in New Zealand has become a
flagship for what ails us. There's spent a huge amount
of time pursuing every single pet project, from hydrogen to
paper cups to sustainable sustainable ag aviation fuel to you

(04:20):
very long glossy reports about climate change. And yet what
they haven't done is what Peter Blake would do is
ask will this make the boat go faster and in
their case take off and land at the right time
for an affordable price. Now, I would argue that that
is partly because of the Bord appointments and the letters

(04:41):
of expectation that Grant Robertson gave them five years or
so ago. You're seeing the flow through of that, but
I'd also argue that, you know, the same sort of
distraction politics is one of the reasons that we have
a real challenge with productivity growth in New Zealand. We've
pursued too many blind alleys, not enough making the boat
go faster and in a funny way in New Zealand

(05:03):
as an icon for New Zealand, but probably not the
one they'd want to be.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Well said David. Thanks very much appreciated. David seymore ministrative
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