10 August 2022 - Upon examining the agenda for this month's PTAC meeting, one would think that it has.

PHARMAC has published the agenda for next week's PTAC meeting. One has to dig a little to find it.

The meeting will be held on 18-19 August. The mind boggle's as to why it will take the Committee 2 days to work through the agenda.

The agenda has a meagre five items:

• Cannabidiol - epilepsy
• Essential nutrients - attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Fomepizole - alcohol toxicity
• Siponimod - multiple sclerosis
• Ticagrelor - cardiovascular disease

Siponimod is the only real/true new medicine on the agenda; we consider cannabidiol to be a new formulation. Siponimod was registered by Medsafe in 2021.

The application for siponimod is the only application to be driven by a pharmaceutical company (Novartis); the rest were driven by a clinician. 

There are no applications on the agenda for a (new) cancer medicine.

Has the innovative pharmaceutical industry given up trying to list innovative new medicines in New Zealand? The evidence to suggest this is compelling.  The agendas for the February and May 2022 PTAC meetings have also been underwhelming.