3 December 2021 - As expected, the interim report fails to address the elephant in the room.

Yesterday, the Minister of Health in New Zealand, Andrew Little, released an interim report on the review of the operations of PHARMAC to the public.

The Minister's press release states that the "initial assessment of PHARMAC's decision-making processes show:

• PHARMAC is underperforming in helping to remove inequitable health outcomes
• Its prioritisation approach appears to disadvantage Māori, Pacific people, disabled people and those with rare disorders
• Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles are largely unseen in decision-making processes
• There may be an excessive focus on containing costs - and a concern the cost-saving model may not be the right one to meet future health needs
• Decision making is opaque and is perceived as being slow
• Engagement with consumers and patient advocacy groups needs to be more meaningful
• Convoluted procurement processes put off pharmaceutical companies
• A perception New Zealand is falling behind other developed countries"

Only a perception?? The Minister should be picked for the Black Caps because he has taken spin in the shaky islands to a completely new level. There is indisputable evidence that New Zealand has fallen well behind other developed countries. Some might say it has fallen off the cliff. Note that that issue was the last of eight bullet points.

Yesterday, we reported that only six new medicines and one new vaccine have been funded by PHARMAC this calendar year. Surprisingly, this is an improvement on the tally for 2020 which saw only five new medicines funded by PHARMAC.

In its reporting of the public release of the interim report, the first point made by the New Zealand Herald is "the fact just 2% of its nearly 150 staff were Māori, despite vowing to prioritise Māori leadership and uphold the Treaty of Waitangi."

Even if PHARMAC was staffed exclusively by Māori & Pacifica people won't change the fact that the agency has failed to provide timely access to many important new medicines, vaccines, blood products, cell therapies and gene therapies to all New Zealanders for many years. This is the elephant in the room.