Why the Minister of Health’s recent comments sting
On May 7 2023, The New Zealand Minister of Health, Dr Ayesha Verrall, was interviewed by Jake Tame for TVNZ’s Q + A to discuss the government’s plan to protect the health system over winter and the general state of the health system. Near the end of the interview, Dr Verrall was asked about Pharmac’s […]
Celebrating our first birthday
Migraine Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand is one year old. And in compliance with the advice that people with migraine receive to moderate their lifestyles, instead of clinking champagne and chowing into cake, we’re taking a moment to catch our breath and meditate on the happy moments over the past year. It felt like a slow […]
It’s our first birthday, but you get the presents
We are one! This time one year ago, Migraine Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand was officially launched. To celebrate our first birthday, we’re giving away five copies of Dr Katy Munro’s book Managing Your Migraine. We think this book is already a migraine literature classic (check out our review of it here). Now we’ve been incorporated […]
A positive response from Pharmac
On 20 January 2023, we sent Pharmac a letter, signed by all four of New Zealand’s headache specialists, raising concerns about its slow handling of the funding application for erenumab (Aimovig), the (in)appropriateness of their review process and how this would affect the application we made in November 2022, for the funding of galcanezumab (Emgality). […]
What’s wrong with Will Jordan having ‘a migraine’?
What a week! No sooner did the wrath of Cyclone Gabrielle move away from Aotearoa leaving devastation in its wake, than Kiwis were hit with the news that All Blacks and Crusader Will Jordan will miss the start of the Super Rugby season due to “diagnosis of a migraine-related condition.” Coach, Scott Robertson explained further: […]
Pharmac goes around in circles on Aimovig funding application
If you know anything about innovations in migraine treatment, you would have heard of the new migraine-specific medications for prevention of migraine – calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) monoclonal antibodies. They’ve been the first real hope for people with treatment-resistant migraine in many years. They don’t work for everyone, but for some people, they’ve been life-transforming, […]
Emgality advocacy toolkit launched
At the end of November, we submitted a consumer application to Pharmac to fund Emgality (galcanezumab) for the treatment of chronic migraine. Read our press release here To coincide with our application, we’ve developed an Emgality advocacy toolkit. The toolkit is designed to help people in New Zealand support our application and raise awareness of […]
Migraine Foundation submits application to Pharmac to fund Emgality
Press release Migraine Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand has submitted a consumer application to Pharmac to fund Emgality (galcanezumab) for the treatment of chronic migraine. Emgality is one of several monoclonal antibody medications that act to block a protein, calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), which is involved in triggering migraine attacks. CGRP monoclonal antibodies are the first […]
Few people on a benefit for migraine in New Zealand
If you’ve ever wondered how many people in Aotearoa New Zealand are on a benefit with migraine disease, we have some answers, but many more questions. We asked the Ministry of Social Development for the number of people with migraine on a Supported Living Payment (SLP-HCD), or a Jobseeker – Health Condition or Disability (JS-HCD) […]
More migraine data needed in New Zealand
New Zealand has a migraine data issue. The issue is the lack of data on migraine in New Zealand. We rely on estimates from the international Global Burden of Disease study to give us an idea of how common migraine is, because we don’t have up-to-date national statistics. Data from the New Zealand Health Survey […]
