Advice sent to the Minister of Health about empagliflozin (Jardiance) and empagliflozin with metformin (Jardiamet)

Thank you for your request dated 16 December 2021 under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) for copies of advice sent to the Minister of Health about empagliflozin (Jardiance) and empagliflozin with metformin (Jardiamet). You asked: 

Could I please request under the OIA the following documents 

Reply 54433 (2021) has been answered
Portfolio: Health (Hon Andrew Little)

Question: What advice, if any, has the Minister seen or received on the diabetes drugs empagliflozin (Jardiance) and empagliflozin with metformin (Jardiamet), by date and title?

Reply: I have received the following written advice from Pharmac: 'Diabetes update for the Minister of Health - Oral anti-diabetic Agents'. received on 17 November 2017. 'Update about the decision delayed for two new diabetes treatments'. received on 4 November 2020. 'Weekly media and issues update – upcoming issues and events', received on the following dates: 16 July 2021; 23 July 2021; 30 July 2021; 6 August 2021; 13 August 2021; 20 August 2021; 10 September 2021. 'Report for quarter 1 2020/21, incorporating monthly report for October 2020', received on 9 November 2020.

I am pleased to provide you with the relevant portions of the reports listed in the response to parliamentary question (PQ) 54433 (2021)(external link). Please find a combined copy of the advice provided by Pharmac to the Minister of Health, ordered by date (oldest to newest), attached with this response letter. 

Please note that we approach our assessment of requests for information under the OIA on the basis that once we release the information to you it becomes available to any other party in that exact form (whether by you distributing it to others or by virtue of us receiving the same request from a different third party). 

We have redacted a small amount of information from the documents as we consider this is necessary to protect the privacy of natural persons (section 9(2)(a)). 

As required under the OIA, we also considered whether, in the circumstances, the withholding of this information was outweighed by other considerations which render it desirable, in the public interest, to make this information available. In this case we did not consider that the public interest outweighed the reasons for withholding the information. 

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I trust that this information answers your queries. We are making our information more freely available, so we now publish selected OIA responses (excluding personal details) on our website. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this.