{"id":484313,"date":"2026-05-14T13:11:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484313\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T13:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:11:15","slug":"pharmac-adds-wegovy-for-weight-loss-to-list-for-future-funding-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484313\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharmac adds Wegovy for weight loss to list for future funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wegovy<\/p>\n

\nIf chosen for future funding, Wegovy would be available to people with a BMI of 35 or more with at least two comorbidities.
\nPhoto: Jens Kalaene \/ AFP\n<\/p>\n

Pharmac has added the weight-loss drug Wegovy to its list of medicines suitable for future funding.<\/p>\n

In a decision released Thursday, the drug-funding agency confirmed it had added Semaglutide – brand name Wegovy – to its list of ‘Options For Investment’, which includes all the medications that Pharmac would fund, if the budget allowed.<\/p>\n

The order of that list is not made public for commercial reasons.<\/p>\n

If chosen for future funding, Wegovy would be available to people with a Body Mass Index of 35 or more with at least two comorbidities.<\/p>\n

In February, Pharmac’s obesity treatments advisory group recommended the drug be funded with high priority.<\/p>\n

Currently unfunded, Wegovy would cost someone about $400 a month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The original application was for Wegovy to be funded for chronic weight management in adults with a BMI of more than 30.<\/p>\n

According to the 2024\/25 New Zealand Health Survey, that would apply to an estimated 34 percent of New Zealanders over 15 years of age, but the committee’s recommendation bumped that up to a BMI of 35, in line with comparable countries like Canada, England and Scotland.<\/p>\n

“However, the group also considered that this threshold could be raised to a BMI of 40… if funding treatment down to this level proved to be cost-prohibitive or not cost-effective.”<\/p>\n

With a BMI over 50, a person would not need comorbodities to qualify, according to the recommendation.<\/p>\n

Below that threshold, a person would need to have at least two of the following – dyslipidaemia, hypertension, diabetes, obstructive sleep apnoea or established cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n

It also included a condition that treatment would stop, if someone did not experience at least a 10 percent reduction in weight after six months.<\/p>\n

It noted that, due to the “relatively high prevalence of obesity and weight-related comorbidities, the budget impact of funding semaglutide for weight management would be very high”.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If chosen for future funding, Wegovy would be available to people with a BMI of 35 or more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[1735,1734,18,135,19,17,462,5,1113,1733,1731,1732],"class_list":{"0":"post-484313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-medication","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-podcasts","17":"tag-public-radio","18":"tag-radio-new-zealand","19":"tag-rnz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116573103392388018","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}