Venlafaxine brand use data

25 September 2019

[name and contact information redacted]

Dear [name redacted]

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Thank you for your request dated 1 September 2019 under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) for information relating to venlafaxine.  You asked for:

The number of people taking Efexor and Arrow-Venlafaxine.  I would like a monthly report covering the period January 2012 – December 2016.

The below information is based on subsidy claims by pharmacies, each month. People can receive venlafaxine in quantities of up to three months at a time. This means that not all people taking venlafaxine will pick up their venlafaxine each month.

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 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
Director, Engagement and Implementation