Decision to list various medical devices

• Medtronic New Zealand Limited (“Medtronic”) for the supply of medical thermometer products and medical devices used in the prevention of venous thromboembolisms (VTE Prevention). This was the subject of a consultation letter dated 4 October 2017.
• Terumo Australia Pty Ltd (“Terumo”) for the supply of medical thermometer products. This was the subject of a consultation letter dated 16 October 2017.
• Amtech Medical Ltd (“Amtech”), Defries Industries New Zealand Limited (“Defries”) and Hallmark Surgical Ltd (“Hallmark”) for the supply of single use instruments. This was the subject of a consultation letter dated 17 October 2017.

In summary, this will result in:

• 209 products being listed in Part III of Section H of the Pharmaceutical Schedule from 1 December 2017.
• DHB saving estimated at $733,000 per annum on the purchase of these product based on current usage levels. The following table provides a summary of the listings and savings:

*assumes no change to current usage levels

• DHB hospitals would continue to be able to choose which medical devices they purchase, however would need to use these agreements should they choose to purchase Amtech, Defries, Hallmark, Medtronic or Terumo products listed in the Pharmaceutical Schedule.  

Any changes to the original proposals?

The proposals were broadly approved as consulted on, except for the following:

• The consultation noted that the Hallmark proposal would be cost neutral, however this will provide savings on delivery fees (for orders with a value of over $500)
• Prices on three products in the Hallmark Agreement have been corrected (reduced to align with the current price).

Details of the decisions

In 2016 PHARMAC released requests for proposals (“RFPs”) for medical thermometers, VTE Prevention and single use instruments. The purpose of these RFPs was to secure national contracts for DHB hospitals to purchase from.

Medtronic, Terumo, Amtech, Defries and Hallmark’s proposals met the associated RFP requirements and PHARMAC has entered into agreements with them for supply of medical devices to be listed on the Pharmaceutical Schedule. This means that DHB hospitals must use the PHARMAC Agreement should they choose to use these products from 1 December 2017.

The list of products will be available on PHARMAC’s website from 1 December 2017, in both a PDF document and an Excel spreadsheet.

Educational services will be provided by all suppliers to DHB personnel on the appropriate use of their medical devices and this will be arranged in formats and at times agreed with individual DHBs.

The agreements are not exclusive. DHBs can continue to purchase other brands of medical thermometers, VTE Prevention products and single use instruments. We expect to consult on further provisional agreements with other suppliers in these categories over the next few months.

Feedback received

We appreciate all of the feedback that we received and acknowledge the time people took to respond. All consultation responses received by 25 October 2017 for Medtronic, 3 November 2017 for Terumo and 6 November 2017 for Amtech, Defries and Hallmark were considered in their entirety in making a decision to approve the provisional Agreements. Most responses were supportive of the proposals, and the following issues were raised in relation to specific aspects of each proposal:

More information

If you have any questions about this decision, you can email us at enquiry@pharmac.govt.nz or call our toll-free number (9 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday) on 0800 66 00 50.