Reports, assessments, memos, minutes and communications about Trikafta
Thank you for your request dated 17 October 2022 under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) for information relating to Trikafta. You requested:
- Any reports/assessments/memos relating to Trikafta and any investigations of life-extending cystic fibrosis drugs in the past year
- Minutes of meetings for the Pharmacology and Therapeutics Advisory Committee recommendations in the past year
- Any communications between Health Minister Andrew Little and Pharmac about Trikafta and cystic fibrosis in the past year, including Minister Little's letter of expectations.
I am pleased to advise you that most of the information you have requested can be found on our website www.pharmac.govt.nz(external link). I have provided details within this response letter of where to find documents related to your request.
Documents provided with this response
In addition to the publicly available information, I have provided copies of two emails with this response letter which are the remaining communications in scope of your request that are not already published on our website.
We have redacted a small amount of information from the emails as we consider this is necessary to protect the privacy of natural persons (section 9(2)(a)). 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.
Information about Trikafta published on our website
Most of the reports, memos, and communications in scope of your request(external link) are already published to our website. These documents are published within our OIA response of 30 March 2022(external link) to a request for all correspondence between Pharmac and any Ministers of Parliament that mentions or has any relevance to the drug Trikafta.
Details of research and/or studies used to inform funding recommendations and Pharmac assessments are included in our advisory committee meeting records and Technology Assessment Reports (TARs). TARs are detailed analyses of new pharmaceuticals. They are used to determine the cost-effectiveness of pharmaceuticals that we are being asked to fund.
In August 2022, we published the TAR for Trikafta on our website. Relevant excerpts of advisory committee meeting records are also published in the details of the funding applications for Trikafta(external link), found on our Application Tracker. Additionally, the full records of the Pharmacology and Therapeutics Advisory Committee (PTAC)(external link) and Respiratory Advisory Committee(external link) meetings can be found on our website.
We 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.