Pharmac backtracks on plan to fund lung cancer drug Keytruda
The move has dashed hopes that Keytruda would soon be publicly funded for lung cancer - New Zealand's biggest cancer killer. RNZ has obtained documents showing Pharmac had planned to offer a Request for Proposals, or RFP, where drug companies are asked to pitch their products and prices, but has put that on hold due to budget constraints. Chief executive Sarah Fitt told RNZ that Pharmac was concerned about rising drug prices worldwide in the Covid-19 pandemic and that it could not commit to funding the drug now - but still hoped to in the future.
Lung cancer patients and their advocates are devastated and said they had been given false hope. Keytruda is available in New Zealand but patients must fund it themselves. "So what we now have is 30 lung cancer patients continuing to die prematurely every week and you have to ask yourself, is that acceptable?" Fitt said funding a drug like Keytruda for lung cancer would have cost hundreds of millions over the next five years and Pharmac could not commit to that given the Covid-19 outbreak.
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Christmas Eve busiest shopping day of the year with more than 500,000 sales
Busiest shopping day of the year
Peak time 12 noon-1 pm - 563,303 transactions
Per second peak - 167 transactions
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Number of sales beats Black Friday, but lowest Christmas Eve in six years
Christmas Eve has been the busiest shopping day of the year with 9,745 sales a minute at its peak.
Payments company Worldline says noon to 1pm saw 563,303 sales recorded on its network, down by about 7 percent on a year ago.
The company's network covers about three-quarters of the electronic terminals in operation.
Worldline did not have a dollar value for spending, but the peak number of transactions was the lowest for the past six years and well shy of the record 679,436 in 2019, before the pandemic.
Earlier this month it noted rising sales in the first three weeks of the month, but they remained 1.3 percent lower than 2024, with most parts of the country trailing the previous year's spending.
Official data from Stats NZ to the end of November showed a small rise in spending on the previous month, to 1.6 percent higher for the year.
Retail spending has been subdued as households have remained cautious because of high prices and a slow benefit from lower interest rates, and as well as concerns about the soft labour market.
However, recent surveys have shown improving consumer sentiment with ANZ bank's monthly report showing confidence at its highest level in four years.
Boxing Day is traditionally the country's favourite shopping day, but with Black Friday spending also softer this year the amount going through retailers' terminals may also be down on a year ago.
Adding a dampener to consumer spending may be the recent rises in longer term fixed mortgage rates because of higher wholesale rates.
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Poll: Is it ok to regift something that you have been given?
🎁 Holiday Gift Chat!
Do you ever regift?
What’s your take on asking for a receipt if a gift doesn’t fit?
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79.1% Yes! It's better to regift what I don't need
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20.9% No. It's the thought and effort that matters
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