New Zealand has funded 86 medicines between January 2011 and June 2025. (File photo) Photo: RNZ
The head of Medicines New Zealand says there is a massive gap in medicine funding between here and across the Tasman which is not improving.
Australia is funding two and a half times the modern medicines Aotearoa is and it's funding them faster in most cases, a new study has found.
Medicines New Zealand released its report Access to Medicines, which tracked drug funding in both countries from January 2011 to June 2025.
It found during that time, Australia publicly funded 215 modern medicines compared to just 86 in New Zealand.
In Australia, medicines were funded, on average, within 18 months of registration, while New Zealanders waited almost three years on average, the report said.
Analysis of 142 medicines publicly funded in Australia but not New Zealand found 115 (80 percent), were considered to be standard of care internationally.
Thirty-eight percent of the 142, were oncology drugs, representing the largest group of drugs not available in New Zealand.
"It highlights the substantial difference in the availability of modern medicine between Australia and New Zealand," the report said.
"Despite the funding announcement in 2024 to deliver on an election campaign promise to fund specific cancer medications this report reveals a widening gap in the availability and public funding of modern medicines between Australia and New Zealand."
Medicines New Zealand chief executive Dr Graeme Jarvis described gap in terms of medicine supply between New Zealand and Australia as "jaw-droppingly massive" and said things were not improving.
"Despite these recent increases in funding from the last two successive governments, the gap is actually getting worse not better and additionally New Zealanders are having to wait far longer than Australians to access a much smaller number of modern medicines."
There had been 30 years of under investment in medicines in New Zealand, with the country's investment one half to a third lower than comparative OECD partner nations such as Australia and the UK, he said.
"We do not value medicines as an important part of the health system."
It was well known medicines helped to keep people out of hospital, he said.
"So I mean they are very well analysed to show the benefit of the investment but we just don't seem to see a need to value them as well as other OECD nations."
The drugs which Australia is funding but New Zealand is not were not optional or experimental treatments, he said.
"These are recognised international standard of care treatments that are publicly funded in lots of comparable countries that basically patients in New Zealand are being denied access to."
Standard of care products were accepted long term treatments for patients in public health systems with a particular illness in particular countries, he said.
It took twice as long to get a registered drug funded in New Zealand compared to Australia whose funding time was at the OECD average, he said.
"That's assuming you get it funded otherwise it ends up on that waiting list that Pharmac has got, a prioritised one, and the average time on that is six years, still not funded."
The government promised to fund 13 new cancer drugs in the lead up to the 2023 election, but on Budget Day 2024, this had not happened. It was forced to make good on that following public backlash over a lack of action.
However, in the first six months of 2025 the report said New Zealand had funded almost as many medicines as Australia with nine compared to 11.
Australia was however, faster at funding medicines 70 percent of the time, it said.
The report noted in Australia there was a time-bound decision window for funding new medicines, which was not present in New Zealand.
"Availability of innovative modern medicines is markedly less in New Zealand compared to Australia."
There were 13 medicines in New Zealand that were not available through public funding in New Zealand, which the report said made it clear there were only "very few instances".
Pharmac's acting director of pharmaceuticals, Caroline De Luca, said she understood New Zealanders wanted more access to modern medicines and that many families had to make "difficult decisions" when it came to unfunded medicines.
Before Pharmac could consider funding a medicine, an application had to be received, she said, and Pharmac had not received applications for about half of the medicines identified in the report.
She said Pharmac would "welcome" any applications to consider funding those medicines, and a pharmaceutical supplier, health professional, or any New Zealander could apply for a medicine to be funded.
"Last year we received a $604m funding increase over four years, which we used to fund 66 medicines (33 for cancer, 33 for other conditions), benefiting 250,000 New Zealanders in the first year of funding."
Associate Health Minister David Seymour's office said he would speak to Checkpoint on the report on Friday.
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