Associate Health Minister David Seymour is welcoming Cabinet’s decision to enable medicines to be approved in less than 30 days if the product has approval from two recognised overseas jurisdictions.
This change is included in the Medicines Amendment Bill (the Bill), which amends the Medicines Act 1981. The pathway will be in operation by early 2026.
The policy will start with Australia, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Singapore and Switzerland, as recognised countries. These are the main countries Medsafe currently recognises.
This is something Eric Crampton and the NZ Initiative have pushed for many years, and great to see it finally agreed by Cabinet. It is a waste of time and money to have Medsafe with a tiny budget and resources try to duplicate the work done by agencies such as the US FDA which have a US$6 billion budget.
Changes like this are not high profile, but they are very important and collectively make a difference so that Kiwis can access safe drugs more quickly.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
1 comment:
Yes great news overall. But will the reduced compliance costs to get a drug approved result in cheaper drugs for New Zealand? What wonderful gene therapy will introduced into our array of vaccines ?
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