David Seymour talking to media in Epsom. Photo: Jason Oxenham / NZ Herald
ACT is promising to require one-week Medsafe approvals for drugs and medical devices approved by at least two similar countries.
The party would also require the Ministry of Health to publish a Medicines Strategy every three years, laying out international evidence around medicines and prioritising funding for them within a fixed budget.
Pharmac would also be subject to performance benchmarking.
Party leader David Seymour announced the policy at Te Awa Lifecare retirement village in Cambridge on Tuesday afternoon, saying New Zealand consistently was one of the worst performers when it came to accessing new medicines.
"Between 2012-2021, New Zealand was at the bottom of the OECD pack ... of 460 new medicines, 16 percent were launched in New Zealand compared with 34 percent for Australia and an OECD average of 41 percent."
He said the Medicines Strategy would "ensure that the regulatory system and funding system for pharmaceuticals is sustainable and not unreasonably holding back access".
Providing access to medicines that had already been approved by any two reputable foreign regulatory bodies such as Australia, the United States, or the United Kingdom would significantly improve access, he said.
The benchmarking for Pharmac would require the Ministry of Health to publish long-term productivity gains from pharmaceutical decisions, productivity losses from illness, comparing illness rates for subsidised versus non-subsidised medicines, and price performance compared to overseas medicine procurers.
The policy document did not lay out any additional funding for these new initiatives.
