More people with type 2 diabetes can get four funded medicines

Around 14,000 more New Zealanders with type 2 diabetes will be able to access these medicines over the next 12 months under Pharmac’s wider eligibility rules, in place since 1 September. That is expected to reach around 31,000 people after five years.

Before that date, around 145,000 people could access these medicines, Pharmac Chief Medical Officer Dr David Hughes said. The medicines help lower blood sugar and reduce the risk of heart and kidney complications for some people.

“Type 2 diabetes affects hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders and can lead to serious complications including heart and kidney disease,” said Dr Hughes.

The four medicines are empagliflozin, empagliflozin with metformin, liraglutide and dulaglutide. They are funded for people with type 2 diabetes whose blood sugar levels remain high despite treatment with other funded diabetes medicines.

The change removes the requirement that people have a history of cardiovascular or renal disease, an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease, and the existing ethnicity criteria. The existing criteria requiring elevated blood sugar levels remain.

Access to these medicines is now based on a single set of funding criteria. Everyone, including Māori and Pacific people, who could access these medicines before would meet the revised criteria.

The decision followed consultation during May this year. Pharmac heard from people living with type 2 diabetes, their families and whānau, health professionals, community organisations and advocacy groups.

Pharmac first proposed lowering the clinical cardiovascular risk threshold for heart disease and removing ethnicity-based criteria. Dr Hughes said many people were concerned that Māori and Pacific peoples, who were eligible but not yet accessing treatment, would miss out.

“We carefully considered that feedback and have changed our original proposal in line with that feedback,” he said. Pharmac worked with suppliers to support wider access than it first proposed.