Funding plans for progesterone only oral contraceptive pill (POP) desogestrel (Cerazette)

18 September 2020 

Dear [name and contact details redacted]

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Thank you for your request dated 25 August 2020 under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) for information relating to funding of desogestrel (Cerazette).  You asked:

• I wanted to enquire if there is any plans for the progesterone only oral contraceptive pill Cerazette (desogestrel) to become fully funded?

PHARMAC currently has one funding application in progress for Cerazette as submitted by the supplier. The current stage of this funding application is ‘Seeking Clinical Advice’. The latest formal recommendation given for this application was to list desogestrel with low priority. This recommendation was given by the Pharmacology and Therapeutics Advisory Committee (PTAC) in November 2008. Please refer to the Application Tracker(external link) for more details and to stay up-to-date with changes made to the funding application as they happen.

Anyone can make a funding application to PHARMAC. You can be a supplier, patient or health professional. If you would like to submit a supporting application for Cerazette, please feel free to do so via our medicines funding application portal – PHARMConnect.

In the meantime, I have forwarded your email to the relevant therapeutic group manager for consideration with the existing funding application.

For information about how medicines are funded by PHARMAC, visit our website.

We trust that this information answers your queries.  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