{"id":561876,"date":"2026-02-02T22:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T22:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/561876\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T22:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T22:18:15","slug":"pharmac-makes-move-towards-funding-weight-loss-drug-wegovy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/561876\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharmac makes move towards funding weight loss drug Wegovy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"11<\/p>\n

\nWegovy is a weight loss drug that is injected weekly.
\nPhoto: JENS KALAENE\n<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Wegovy or semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist for weight loss.<\/p>\n

The drug first became available here in July last year, and currently costs about $460 a month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The recommendation is subject to Special Authority criteria, which will limit who can prescribe it.<\/p>\n

The recommendation has been announced after the advisory group met in December<\/a>, with a full record of the meeting expected to be available by March.<\/p>\n

A ‘goldrush’ of weight loss drugs<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“So the pressure is on to really deliver them,” he said, “the problem at the moment is the expense.”<\/p>\n

Wegovy helped reduce the incidents of diseases including type-two diabetes and sleep apnea, Swinburn said.<\/p>\n

The struggle for Pharmac would be finding a mechanism to make it affordable within its fixed budget, he said.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He said most of his patients who were on Wegovy had some sort of co-morbidity, rather than just being classed as obese.<\/p>\n

McQuinlan believed if the drug was funded, the advisory board would most likely be looking at making it available to high-risk patients.<\/p>\n

“There have been really good trials showing 20 percent reduction in heart disease patients getting a second event.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Previously, Pharmac had received two applications to fund Wegovy.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

New Zealand has the third-highest adult obesity rate in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wegovy is a weight loss drug that is injected weekly. Photo: JENS KALAENE Pharmac has taken the first…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":561877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[5157,3240,210,1060,50,5158,5156,5154,5155,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-561876","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-health","11":"tag-medication","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-podcasts","14":"tag-public-radio","15":"tag-radio-new-zealand","16":"tag-rnz","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116003360678474667","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}