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9 Feb
Advocacy

Trikafta Update - February 2022

9 February 2022

Things have been quiet on the Trikafta on the front over the last couple of months while we’ve been waiting for Pharmac to let us know what happened at the meeting of its Pharmaceutical and Therapeutics Committee (PTAC) last November.

Pharmac had previously announced it wanted to fund Trikafta and added it to the Options for Investment list, but wanted advice from PTAC on how Trikafta ranks against other the other medicines it wants to fund.

But hopefully the waiting will be over soon, and the minutes of the November 2021 PTAC meeting will be published in the next few weeks.

The outcome has to be a resounding recommendation to Pharmac to fund Trikafta and to the Government to provide the funding to do it. 

The case for funding is overwhelming. Pharmac’s clinical advisors gave it a high priority recommendation, concluding that it would provide significant improvements in quality of life and life expectancy, and enable people with CF to live almost normal lives. Pharmac itself called it a “paradigm-shifting” treatment. And real world data recently published by Vertex from more than 16,000 US patients reinforces what we already know about the effectiveness of Trikafta and the life-changing benefits it could bring to Kiwis with CF. View the real world data here.

We’re asking Pharmac and Vertex to get on and negotiate a fair and reasonable price for Trikafta now. And we’re asking Government to do the right thing and give Pharmac the funding it needs to provide Trikafta to every Kiwi with CF who would benefit.

We’ll be doing all we can over the coming months to campaign for Trikafta and we’ll need the help and support of the whole CF community – we’ll update you shortly. In the meantime, our fingers are crossed for a positive recommendation from PTAC – Kiwis with CF deserve a future to look forward to.