Pharmaceutical budget bid

23 May 2019

[Name and contact details redacted]

Dear [Name redacted]

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Thank you for your request dated 29 April 2019 under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) for information relating to pharmaceutical budget bids.  You asked for copies of the letter that went to the Minister of Health seeking approval of the pharmaceutical budget bid for the following years:

• 2016/17
• 2017/18
• 2018/19

The 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 pharmaceutical budget bid approval letters are attached to this response.

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 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 or which any person has been or could be compelled to provide under the authority of any enactment, 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)); and
• 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.

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

[Alison Hill's signature]

Alison Hill
Director, Engagement and Implementation