Diabetes drugs delay disappoints
Kim Dennis is one of few New Zealanders who knows what it’s like to manage their type 2 diabetes with modern medication.
So the 67-year-old from South Auckland, had one word for Pharmac’s decision to delay funding of life-changing type 2 diabetes medicines dulaglutide and empagliflozin: ‘‘Disappointing.’’
About 250,000 New Zealanders have type 2 diabetes. The new medicines – which manage blood sugar levels as well as health complications like kidney failure and heart disease – were due to be funded come December 1.
But while the Government’s medicine-buying agency says its needs more time to consider feedback on proposals, a diabetes expert says it comes down to one thing – budget.
Dennis spent six years taking dulaglutide as part of a trial. She moved from twice-daily insulin injections to just a weekly shot, lost 10kgs and found she had more energy. Now she is back to square one, her health having deteriorated in the three months since the trial ended.
Her disappointment was echoed by health experts, who said New Zealand’s diabetic treatments – which only manage blood sugar levels – are behind those on offer in otherWestern nations.
And the delay will disproportionately fail Ma¯ori and Pasifika people, who are more likely to develop complications, said Dr Bryan Betty, medical director of the Royal New Zealand College of General
Practitioners. ’’Ma¯ori and Pasifika are 12 times more likely to progress towards endstage renal [kidney] failure and end up on dialysis. New Zealand is very much behind the eight ball in terms of international best practice for diabetics. We can’t afford to wait any longer. I think it’s unacceptable.’’
But Pharmac director of operations Lisa Williams said it was taking more time to consider feedback on its proposal. ‘‘Feedback to our consultation was overwhelmingly positive about the proposal to fund these two new medicines, but some important questions have been raised that we want to consider further,’’ she said. Dr John Baker from Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa said Pharmac was ‘‘constrained by a capped budget’’.
‘‘Pharmac has different priorities, which often rank above clinical care,’’ he said.
Baker argued the cost of the older drugs combined with premature deaths and the pressure on the health system – including $90,000 a year for a dialysis machine – was more expensive than funding modernmedicines.
And Baker and Betty both agreed that access to the drugs was critical and prevented death.
Now Dennis, whose hereditary type 2 diabetes was diagnosed 40 years ago, manages her disease as best she can with exercise and medication. But she wants to access modern medicines.
‘‘It gives people a better chance of controlling their disease and limiting the complications from it,’’ she said.
‘‘We deserve the right like everybody else does.’’