NZ's PHARMAC proposal to award sole supply to Zoladex and reference price leuprorelin

7 July 2016

Following a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the supply of gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues (GnRH analogues), issued in March 2016, New Zealand’s Pharmaceutical Management Agency, PHARMAC, has entered into a provisional agreement with the local subsidiary of Anglo-Swedish pharma major AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) over a cancer drug.

PHARMAC is seeking feedback on a proposal to:

reduce the price and subsidy for AstraZeneca’s brand of goserelin (Zoladex) from October 1, 2016.
award Sole Supply Status and Hospital Supply Status to AstraZeneca’s brand of goserelin from December 1, 2016.

This means Zoladex would be the only fully funded brand of goserelin in the community and would be the only available brand in District Health Board (DHB) hospitals subject to a 1% discretionary variance (DV) limit from December 1, 2016.

reduce the subsidy for other listed GnRH analogues listed in Section B of the Pharmaceutical Schedule to the level of subsidy of goserelin (Reference Pricing) as soon as October 1, 2016.

If the suppliers of leuprorelin do not reduce the price to the level of subsidy for goserelin, this would result in:

A patient part charge applying to leuprorelin medicines; and
goserelin being the only fully funded GnRH analogue on the Pharmaceutical Schedule.

delist the four-monthly dose presentation of leuprorelin – leuprorelin Inj 30mg, prefilled syringe (Eligard) from October 1, 2016.

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