The Forbidden Pharmacy, a national campaign aimed at making access to medicines an election issue, launched on Friday 24 July 2026.
Migraine Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand is one of 17 health charities involved in The Forbidden Pharmacy campaign. The Migraine Foundation team, together with our patient spokesperson Jess, was present when the pharmacy doors opened to politicians and media on Friday. This was followed by a public event on Saturday 25 July, which saw over 1,500 people come through the doors and add their support to the campaign.
The Forbidden Pharmacy installation was a visual representation of the 200+ medications that are funded overseas for chronic conditions such as migraine, rare disorders and cancers, but are unfunded in New Zealand. The shelves of the pharmacy were stocked with medications that are on Pharmac’s Options for Investment list waiting for funding. These medications have already been assessed by Pharmac as safe and effective and that they would like to fund if they had the budget to do so.
Todd Stephenson (ACT), Sam Uffindell (National), Helen White (Labour) and Jenny Marcroft (NZ First) attended the official launch, with Minister of Health Hon Simeon Brown attending in the afternoon. The other major political parties (Green Party, Te Pāti Māori and The Opportunity Party) were invited but did not attend.
The installation also featured personal stories of Kiwis affected by this medicine access crisis, of which Jess talked about the impact of not having access to any of the 4 unfunded migraine-specific medications that sit on Pharmac’s top priority funding list.
Jess had volunteered to represent the migraine community and took part in filming prior to the launch. Jess also spoke to a number of reporters prior to and during the launch (links to media pieces below). Huge thank you to Jess for sharing the reality of living with chronic migraine and the impact the lack of access to modern medications has for people with chronic conditions.
What’s the aim of the campaign?
Every year, Pharmac (the Government’s medicine buying agency) receives many more applications for publicly funded medicines than its budget allows it to fund. Once each application has gone through Pharmac’s Health Technology Assessment process it’s then ranked from highest to lowest priority, and once prioritised it’s added to one of 3 lists: options for investment; only if cost neutral or saving; application for decline.
The Options for Investment (OFI) list is the list of medications Pharmac would fund if it had the budget to do so.
This list is not a “maybe.” It’s a queue. Pharmac has assessed these medications as being worthy of funding but Pharmac is unable to fund them because its budget is capped. Until the government increases investment into Pharmac, people with migraine and other conditions with medications on the OFI list wait and miss out on medications that should be funded.
The Forbidden Pharmacy campaign is calling on the future Government to fund the medicines New Zealand needs. The campaign is calling on politicians to properly fund Pharmac so New Zealanders are no longer left waiting for life-changing medicines that people in comparable countries already receive as standard of care treatment.
Ultimately, we want a medicines budget that reflects the size of our population and the scale of our need, so New Zealanders have access to the same modern medicines as people in other comparable countries.The campaign is calling on politicians to properly fund
Add your support to the campaign
Visit The Forbidden Pharmacy campaign website and add your name to the open letter to the leaders of our political parties. This takes less than one minute to do.
While you’re visiting the website, have a read of the patient stories and the examples of medications waiting for funding, including one of the anti-CGRP medications.
As the campaign progresses we’ll be sharing more of Jess’ story.
Please also support our other advocacy initiative by using our Advocacy Campaign Toolkit. We urge you to write to your local MP about the impact migraine has on your life and ask them about their commitment to improve New Zealander’s access to modern medicines. The toolkit has template letters to help you write to them.
And please consider donating to our advocacy efforts and support our volunteer team doing the work and the financial costs associated with being part of The Forbidden Pharmacy campaign.
Small selection of The Forbidden Pharmacy media
