Information regarding Spinraza funding

Dear [name and contact details redacted]

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: SPINRAZA FUNDING

Thank you for your email in which you have asked for information about funding for Spinraza. 

I understand that my colleagues have already addressed most of your questions, but we have not yet sent you a copy of the economic assessment for Spinraza. A copy of this is attached. 

Your request for this document has been considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA). PHARMAC approaches its assessment of requests under the Act 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 have redacted a small amount of information from the documents as we consider this is necessary to: 

• protect information where the making available of the information would be likely to unreasonably prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or who is the subject of the information (section 9(2)(b)(ii));
• protect information which is subject to an obligation of confidence, where the making available of the information would be likely to prejudice the supply of similar information, or information from the same source, and it is in the public interest that such information should continue to be supplied (section 9(2)(ba)(i));
• enable PHARMAC to carry on, without prejudice or disadvantage, negotiations, including commercial negotiations (section 9(2)(j)).

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.

PHARMAC is making its 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