Pharmac Will Fund Any Medicine for Young People With Paediatric-Origin Cancers, About 15 a Year
- New Zealand’s drug funding agency, Pharmac, said on 30 September 2026 that from 14 October it will extend Rule 8.1(b) of the Pharmaceutical Schedule to adolescents and young adults with paediatric-origin cancers who meet the eligibility criteria.
- Rule 8.1(b), in place since 2005, gives children treated in a paediatric oncology service funded access to any medicine used to treat their cancer. Eligible adolescents and young adults will now have the same access whether they are treated in a paediatric or adult service.
- Eligibility requires a defined paediatric-origin cancer, such as acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma or medulloblastoma, treatment on a paediatric-based protocol, and meeting Health New Zealand’s adolescent and young adult criteria, generally ages 12 to 24. Patients who turn 25 mid-treatment stay eligible until the course ends.
- Pharmac expects about 15 more patients a year to qualify. Around 150 children are diagnosed with cancer in New Zealand each year. The change follows a 2023 consultation and a March 2024 decision to keep and strengthen the rule.
Access read
The numbers are small, but the rule is unusual: New Zealand funds by tumour type and protocol rather than product by product.
- Rule 8.1(b) is an open formulary for one group. Most Pharmac funding is decided medicine by medicine. For paediatric oncology, any medicine used to treat the cancer is funded, and that now extends to a defined group of older patients.
- Tumour biology replaces the treatment setting. Pharmac’s review found that adolescents and young adults with the same tumour biology and protocols had different access depending on whether a children’s or adult service treated them. Access now follows the cancer rather than the ward.
- The open door has a guard. The review also recommended working with clinicians on how new and emerging therapies are managed under the rule, to keep it financially sustainable, and Pharmac says that is now part of its core business. For makers of new paediatric oncology medicines, it is a managed route with limits built in.