Wegovy is a weight loss drug that is injected weekly.
Photo: JENS KALAENE
Pharmac has taken the first steps towards funding weight loss drug Wegovy after an advisory panel provisionally recommended funding it as a high priority for some people.
Wegovy or semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist for weight loss.
The drug first became available here in July last year, and currently costs about $460 a month.
Pharmac Director of Advice and Assessment, David Hughes, said the Obesity Treatments Advisory Group have provisionally recommended it be funded for chronic weight management in people with a high Body Mass Index (BMI) and associated comorbidities.
The recommendation is subject to Special Authority criteria, which will limit who can prescribe it.
The recommendation has been announced after the advisory group met in December, with a full record of the meeting expected to be available by March.
A ‘goldrush’ of weight loss drugs
Boyd Swinburn, an Auckland University Professor of global health and nutrition, told Morning Report, the move towards funding came at a time when there was a “gold rush” on these kinds of drugs that were very effective at reducing obesity.
“So the pressure is on to really deliver them,” he said, “the problem at the moment is the expense.”
Wegovy helped reduce the incidents of diseases including type-two diabetes and sleep apnea, Swinburn said.
The struggle for Pharmac would be finding a mechanism to make it affordable within its fixed budget, he said.
“Type two diabetes is a very chronic, expensive disease so Pharmac would be interest in drugs that would reduce that by bringing it under control or even reversing it.”
Weight loss specialist Dr Gerard McQuinlan, told Morning Report, there had been lots of good evidence that Wegovy slowed the rates of heart disease and strokes in patients.
He said most of his patients who were on Wegovy had some sort of co-morbidity, rather than just being classed as obese.
McQuinlan believed if the drug was funded, the advisory board would most likely be looking at making it available to high-risk patients.
“There have been really good trials showing 20 percent reduction in heart disease patients getting a second event.”
Having the drug unfunded created inequity, McQuinlan said, and if it was funded it would create clear criteria for managing patients with obesity and heart disease.
“I think it will be targeted to certain high-risk patients. [It] will not be for mass-prescribing, probably for people who already have established cardiovascular disease.”
Previously, Pharmac had received two applications to fund Wegovy.
The first was in September, for people with an established cardiovascular disease (such as someone who has had a heart attack or stroke) and a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 27 or higher. The second was in October, for chronic weight management in people with a BMI of 30 or higher, with at least one weight-related comorbidity.
New Zealand has the third-highest adult obesity rate in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
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