weight-loss jab Saxenda<\/a>, patients must apply individually for reimbursement. It is one of 46 drugs under a managed protocol, meaning there are restrictions on who can use it.<\/p>\nReferring just to Saxenda, Professor Barry said: \u201cAt the start of this year, we had reviewed 24,000 applications, and that\u2019s now 26,000. You can imagine we go through each individual application, so it\u2019s very time-consuming.\u201d<\/p>\n
The approval rate is now about 50%, with 75% of applications from female patients, while the average age is 50, he said. Patients start on a low dose and are assessed after 12 weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you lost 5% or more body weight, then you are a responder, and we will pay for the second phase,\u201d Prof Barry said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we did not have something like this in place, the budget impact would be far, far higher.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some 6,631 patients are currently approved for long-term use of Saxenda, he told the Axis Patient Access in Ireland conference today, Thursday.<\/p>\n
New weight-loss drug Mounjaro is being assessed for funding.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cShould it be reimbursed, there is no doubt it will have to be managed.\u201d Even then, \u201cwe are dealing with enormous sums of money,\u201d Mr Barry said.<\/p>\n
Many EU countries do not reimburse patients for any weight-loss drugs, including Germany, he added.<\/p>\n
He also said the HSE uses far more generic non-brand medicines than previously. He said:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Cumulative savings are in excess of \u20ac100m a year and that\u2019s important.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not for the sake of making these savings, but it\u2019s investing them back into new medicines.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is against a backdrop of a rapidly-growing medicines budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking about a drugs budget now in excess of \u20ac4bn,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He shared data showing 43 drugs were considered for funding last year, covering 48 reasons for use. The initial gross cost would have been around \u20ac990m over five years, but negotiations and managing access reduced this by about half.<\/p>\n
Niamh Griffin, Health Correspondent\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 26,000 people have applied for HSE funding to take just one type of weight loss drug since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,142476,1730,137,3945,490,7716],"class_list":["post-643034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-consumer-affairs","tag-drugs","tag-health","tag-hse","tag-medication","tag-ozempic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}