Chief Executive's foreword
Tēnā koutou katoa,
I am pleased to present the 2024 Year in Review for Pharmac | Te Pātaka Whaioranga. There have been a number of significant highlights in the past year, as well as challenges, changes, and opportunities.
In April 2024, we welcomed Hon Paula Bennett as Pharmac’s new Board Chair. In May, the Minister provided his Letter of Expectations, outlining his expectation that we work closely with our stakeholders – consumers, clinicians, medicine suppliers, and health sector partners – to ensure New Zealanders have the medicines and medical devices they need.
The need to strengthen the way we engage with stakeholders, particularly consumers, has been an enduring theme for Pharmac throughout 2024. In November, Pharmac’s Board commissioned two independently facilitated workshops with consumer groups to understand consumer experiences of working with Pharmac and where we need to improve to ensure consumer voices are heard, valued, and included throughout our work. Consumer engagement will continue to be a priority for Pharmac in 2025.
The number of people needing medicines keeps growing, last year more than 4 million New Zealanders received funded medicines – 100,000 more people than the previous year.
A highlight during the year was undoubtedly the Government’s $604 million budget boost for Pharmac, which enabled us to fund new medicines and widen access to some of the ones we already fund. We made good use of this additional budget, funding more medicines for a range of cancers and other health conditions including schizophrenia, heart failure, and osteoporosis.
During the year, we made other decisions that had a significant impact on the lives of thousands of New Zealanders, including funding continuous glucose monitors for people with type 1 diabetes.
Working closely with other health agencies has been important for the success of our work in 2024. For example, we have worked with Health New Zealand to allow pharmacies to offer childhood immunisations, carried out joint consultations with Medsafe on ADHD medicines, worked with Health New Zealand on hospital medical devices, and worked with Health New Zealand, the Cancer Control Agency, and the Ministry of Health on the funding of new cancer medicines.
We have also improved a number of our processes. For example, we now allow parallel assessments for all medicines, meaning Pharmac can assess a funding application at the same time Medsafe is assessing the application for regulatory approval.
In 2024, we continued our work to improve the way medical devices are managed in New Zealand. Medical devices are essential to the care people receive in hospitals and their communities. By the end of 2024, 75 percent of medical devices used in public hospitals were under Pharmac contracts. In 2025, work will continue towards closing the list of medical devices that public hospitals purchase from. This work will ultimately mean that no matter where you live in the country, your hospital will have access to the same medical devices, for the same price, under the same terms and conditions.
By knowing what is in use, the health system will be able to make the best investments and long-term decisions about what medical devices need to be funded and used.
I’m proud of all that Pharmac has achieved in the past year and the team is looking forward to working with you all throughout 2025.