Pharmaceutical policies in Australia and New Zealand
Abstract
his presentation will cover the pharmacy systems in Australia and New Zealand, the funding and reimbursement of medicines, the medicines supply system as well as an overview of medicine pricing policies in both countries.
New Zealand has a very effective monopsony purchaser, the Pharmaceutical Management Agency of New Zealand (PHARMAC). PHARMAC negotiates the prices of inpatient, outpatient medicines, vaccines and medical devices, and manages a capped national budget for outpatient and cancer pharmaceuticals. PHARMAC uses a variety of mechanisms to obtain lower prices, including competitive tendering, sole supply contracts, reference pricing, bundling deals, risk sharing agreements and promoting use of generics. As a result, New Zealanders have universal and nationally consistent pharmaceutical coverage, with lower patient pharmaceutical co-payments than many comparable countries.