Posted by Michael Wonder on 10 Sep 2020
PHARMAC seeking views on widened access to juvenile idiopathic arthritis medicines
11 September 2020 - PHARMAC is looking at widening access to three funded treatments – adalimumab, etanercept and tocilizumab – to enable more young people with juvenile idiopathic arthritis to benefit from these medicines.
PHARMAC is proposing to widen access to these medicines to treat people with juvenile idiopathic arthritis who have five swollen joints (at least three with limitation of motion), without the need for a trial of intra-articular steroid injections.
PHARMAC is also proposing to widen access to adalimumab and etanercept to include treatment of people with oligoarticular course juvenile idiopathic arthritis, where fewer than five joints are affected.
