Source: Radio New Zealand
Wegovy is a weight loss drug that is injected weekly. JENS KALAENE
A paediatric specialist is urging the country’s drug agency to fund weight loss medication for teenagers.
A Pharmac advisory panel has provisionally recommended funding Wegovy for chronic weight management in people with high BMI’s and associated conditions.
The semaglutide drug first became available here in July last year, and currently costs about $460 a month.
The advisory groups recommendation is subject to Special Authority criteria, which will limit who can prescribe it.
The recommendation has been announced after the advisory group met in December, with a full record of the meeting expected to be available by March.
But one specialist believes there are a number of teenagers who would benefit from the drug if it is funded.
Professor Wayne Cutfield, a professor of paediatric endocrinology at the Liggins Institute, told Checkpoint funding Wegovy for teenagers would help prevent serious health issues before they arose.
He said he frequently sees very obese teenagers coming into the clinic.
“These are teenagers who weigh between 120 and 150 kilograms, these are 14 to 16 year old teenagers.”
“Most of these teenagers who have severe obesity will gain between half a kilogram and a kilogram a month – month on month, year on year… you can see by the time they’re 45, they will have much more severe obesity.”
Cutfield said Pharmac choosing not to fund the drug for teenagers would be like “closing the gate after the horse had bolted.
“Do they want to try and stop them from having heart attacks, stop them from having strokes, stop them from developing rampant diabetes or liver disease leading to sclerosis?”
Real-world follow ups of patients who have taken Wegovy have shown that weight regain can happen quickly after stopping the drug.
“There is often a return back to the pre-treatment weight. And the reason is, Wegovy suppresses appetite.”
Cutfield said that lifestyle changes were incredibly important to sustain weight loss and prevent teens from being on the drug for a lifetime
“Unless patients taking Wegovy make lifestyle changes, in other words, learn to diet, learn to eat less, and be more active they are going to be on treatment potentially lifelong.”
Pharmac has not yet signalled whether teens will be eligible for the drug if it is funded, however Cutfield believes it is highly likely this will be the case.
“If you look at any form of obesity treatment at the moment, these very obese teenagers are not eligible for bariatric surgery, there’s kind of nothing for them. Unless they get included, they are simply going to wait and get larger and larger and start developing obesity-related complications.”
At the current cost of around $460 a month, Cutfield said there is very much so an “equity issue” surrounding access to Wegovy.
He said the cost benefit of funding the drug are “potentially enormous”.
“You’re preventing serious diseases for which there are huge costs in terms of treatment costs, hospitalisations, lost time off work, chronic ill health, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, severe liver disease, obstructive sleep apnea, affecting your capacity to breathe at night.”
However, Cutfield said health practitioners should have a stronger focus on implementing lifestyle changes for patients alongside prescribing the drug.
“I think as medical practitioners, and those who take the drug, we’ve got to collectively work harder at getting patients eventually off the drug and not have them on this drug for life.”
Pharmac’s director device and assessment Dr David Hughes told Checkpoint that Pharmac recently released the provisional recommendation from its Obesity Treatments Advisory Group in regards to current funding applications for Semaglutide (Wegovy).
“Typically, unless there is a strong clinical rationale or evidence for doing so, the age of individuals is not one of the factors Pharmac considers when making funding decisions.”
He said the full record of the recommendations related to these applications is expected to be released in full in March 2026.
Previously, Pharmac had received two applications to fund Wegovy.
The first was in September, for people with an established cardiovascular disease (such as someone who has had a heart attack or stroke) and a BMI of 27 or higher. The second was in October, for chronic weight management in people with a BMI of 30 or higher, with at least one weight-related comorbidity.
New Zealand has the third-highest adult obesity rate in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
