By Guyon Espiner of RNZ The very idea of Pharmac presents a conundrum for the minister in charge, Act leader David Seymour. His mum was a pharmacist, but in a Venn diagram of Seymour and Pharmac , the circles would barely overlap. For Act , the market is king, subsidies are evil and success is spending as little taxpayer money as possible.
Pharmac was established in 1993 to stand in the way of the market. It’s a monopoly drug buyer, using taxpayer money to fund medicines..