FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitor and Dexcom continuous glucose monitor, Tandem insulin pump
3 December 2020
Dear [name and contact details withheld]
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
Thank you for your request dated 14 November 2020 under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) for information relating to blood glucose monitors and insulin pumps. You wrote:
Under the Official Information Act please provide all documentation you hold regarding the applications, meetings, advice, correspondence and decisions made regarding funding the Freestyle Libre Flash Glucose Monitoring System. If possible include the current rank on your prioritisation list.
Please also provide all documentation you hold regarding the applications, meetings, advice, correspondence and decisions made regarding funding any iteration of the Dexcom Continous Glucose Monitor. If possible include the current rank on your prioritisation list.
Finally please also provide all documentation you hold regarding the Tandem T:slim X2 Insulin Pump, specifically software upgrades to Basal-IQ and Control-IQ which allow the pump to integrate with the Dexcom G6 CGMS and automatically adjust insulin delivery.
We are able to provide some of the information you have requested however, as your request is for a large amount of information which will require extensive research and collation, please note that we are unable to provide all of the information requested at this time. We will continue to work to collate the information requested and will provide this to you, via email, as soon as possible and without undue delay. If you would like to refine the scope of your request, this may assist us with collating and preparing information for release more quickly.
In the meantime, please find some information relevant to your request below.
PHARMAC currently has two (2) active funding applications for blood glucose monitors:
- Medtronic continuous glucose monitoring systems - Guardian 3 and Guardian Connect; and
- FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitoring system.
PHARMAC has not yet made a decision for either of these funding applications.
Please refer to the PHARMAC Application Tracker to view the status and public information for these applications, including links to related clinical advice meeting records. The Application Tracker can be found on our website: www.pharmac.govt.nz > top right corner: Application Tracker.(external link)
Additionally, please refer to our OIA response issued 18 November 2020 for information related to the FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitoring system application. PHARMAC’s published OIA responses can be found on our website: www.pharmac.govt.nz > About > What we do > Accountability information > Official Information Act.
Please note that PHARMAC approaches its assessment of requests for information under the OIA on the basis that, once released, the information becomes publicly available - in other words 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 are unable to provide the specific rank of the FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitoring system application on our Options for Investment (prioritisation) list as we believe this would impact on PHARMAC’s ability to carry on, without prejudice or disadvantage, negotiations, including commercial negotiations (section 9(2)(j)) of the OIA). Additionally, as no current funding application exists for any iteration of the Dexcom continuous glucose monitor (CGM), we are unable to provide any rank information for this pharmaceutical as the information is not held by PHARMAC and we have no grounds to believe the information is held by any other agency (section 18(g) of the OIA).
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.
Please note you have the right, by way of complaint under section 28(3) of the OIA to an Ombudsman, to seek an investigation and review of our decision.
We will continue to collate information considered in scope of your request, received 14 November 2020, relating to the FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitoring system, Dexcom continuous glucose monitor and the Tandem T:slim X2 insulin pump and aim to provide this information in January 2021.
We are making our information more freely available, so we will now publish selected OIA responses (excluding personal details) on our website. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this.
Yours sincerely
Rachel Read
Manager, Policy and Government Services