New Zealand decision to widen access to PAH treatments

15 January 2018

New Zealand’s Pharmaceutical Management Agency PHARMAC has announced its decision to widen funded access to five treatments for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

This decision will:

List epoprostenol (Veletri) in Section B of the Schedule (community access) and widen funded access for certain severe patients. Veletri was developed by Swiss biotech firm Actelion, which last year was acquired by the Janssen unit of US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ);
Reduce the severity requirement to include all patients who are NYHA Functional Class II;
Fund earlier dual therapy, by reducing the number of required monotherapy trials from two to one;
Fund triple therapy for patients with certain severe circumstances;
Allow clinicians to apply for sildenafil (Pfizer’s Revatio) and bosentan (Actelion’s Tracleer), funding through the standard Special Authority application process, instead of applying to the PAH Panel; and
Allow treating clinicians to seek expert clinical advice from the PAH Panel.

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