NZ's PHARMAC to award sole supply to Zoladex from AstraZeneca

31 August 2016

New Zealand’s Pharmaceutical Management Agency PHARMAC has made decisions to award the Zoladex brand of cancer drug goserelin Sole Subsidized Supply in the community and Hospital Supply Status in District Health Board hospitals and to apply reference pricing to leuprorelin (Eligard and Lucrin) in the community.

In summary, the effect of the decisions is that:

the price and subsidy for the Zoladex brand of goserelin (supplied by AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN]) will be reduced from October 1, 2016;
the Zoladex brand of goserelin will be the community Sole Subsidized Supply brand and have Hospital Supply Status from December 1, 2016 until June 30, 2019. This means that Zoladex will be the only fully funded brand of goserelin in the community and will be the only available brand in DHB hospitals subject to a 1% discretionary variance (DV) Limit from December 1, 2016 until June 30, 2019;
the subsidy for leuprorelin (Eligard, Lucrin) listed in Section B of the Pharmaceutical Schedule will be reduced to the level of subsidy of goserelin via the application of reference pricing from December 1, 2016. If the suppliers of leuprorelin do not reduce their prices to match the level of subsidy for goserelin, this would result in:

a manufacturer’s surcharge applying to leuprorelin medicines; and
goserelin being the only fully funded GnRH analogue.

a higher subsidy by endorsement for leuprorelin will be available for children or adolescents who are unable to tolerate administration of goserelin;
a higher subsidy by endorsement for leuprorelin will also be available from December 1, 2016 until February 28, 2017 for patients who have outstanding repeat dispensings of leuprorelin; and
the four monthly dose presentation of leuprorelin inj 30mg, prefilled syringe (Eligard) will be delisted on October 1, 2016.

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