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Speaker 1: Heather do for sea wait loss drug with GOVI is

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Speaker 1: available in New Zealand from today, but it isn't cheap.

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Speaker 1: It's not funded by Farmac, so anyone who wants to

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Speaker 1: actually use it has to shell out five hundred bucks

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Speaker 1: a month, and this prompted a debate about whether we

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Speaker 1: should be funding it. Professor Boyd Swinburners from Auckland University

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Speaker 1: School of Population of Health and with us Hi, Boyd, Hi, Heather,

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Speaker 1: do you think we should publicly fund it?

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Speaker 2: I think in the end it'll get on the public

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Speaker 2: public funding, but it won't be at five hundred bucks

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Speaker 2: a month. When these early drugs, the first generation of

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Speaker 2: these drugs come off patent, their price will drop enormously

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Speaker 2: and that'll give Farmac a chance to really negotiate down

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Speaker 2: the price, and that will make the cost effectiveness equation

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Speaker 2: very strong. I think. So we'll see it, we'll see

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Speaker 2: it come about, but not until then.

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Speaker 1: How much cheaper do you reckon?

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Speaker 2: Well, you just look at what we used to pay

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Speaker 2: for like cholesterol lowering drugs and so on. When they

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Speaker 2: first came out, it was huge and Farmac took a

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Speaker 2: long time to come around to funding those For the

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Speaker 2: whole population because of the cost. But in the end

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Speaker 2: they dropped off patent and now they're really cheap. But

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Speaker 2: I can't tell you the exact prices or what were

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Speaker 2: this is going to end up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think that we prescribe it for everybody over,

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Speaker 1: will make it available to people with a BMI over

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Speaker 1: thirty or.

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Speaker 2: Do you go no, Well that's the recommendation at the moment,

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Speaker 2: a BMI over thirty or a BMI over twenty seven with.

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Speaker 1: That's a lot of people. I mean, according to one

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Speaker 1: health reporters, about one point five million adult New Zealanders.

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Speaker 2: I know it's a huge amount. And it's similar with

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Speaker 2: high blood pressure. You know, we've got a lot of

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Speaker 2: New Zealanders with high blood pressure and we treat them, yeah,

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Speaker 2: with tablets as well, on a regular basis. And then

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Speaker 2: what do you reckon? Boy?

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Speaker 1: Do you leave people? Because I mean the initial studies

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Speaker 1: are showing that you go and we'll go v and

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Speaker 1: you lose the weight, you come off and you put

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Speaker 1: the weight back on within a year. So do you

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Speaker 1: leave people on it permanently?

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Speaker 2: Then? Yeah? Well, this is the thing about drugs that

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Speaker 2: don't work if you don't take them, and again the

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Speaker 2: analogy my cholesterol, that we people have high blood pressure,

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Speaker 2: high cholesterol because of a mix of their you know,

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Speaker 2: their genes and their lifestyle and their habits and all

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Speaker 2: that sort of thing. And we've got no problem funding

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Speaker 2: those or accepting that those people need to be on

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Speaker 2: them for you know, for a long time, probably their

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Speaker 2: life if they want to prevent the diseases that they

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Speaker 2: prescribed for it. So we do have to get our

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Speaker 2: mindset around that a little bit. For more from Heather

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Speaker 2: Duplessyellen Drive, listen live to news Talks. It'd be from

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Speaker 2: four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.