A few weeks ago I read something somewhere that Pharmac had reached agreement with Roche for the purchase of Ronapreve, which is an monoclonal antibody medicine used to treat Covid-19, as opposed to the vaccine, which is not a treatment. I was bemused, because I follow the Covid announcements closely, and had not heard it being promoted. So I made an OIA request:
“On 31 October 2021, Pharmac announced that it had reached agreement with Roche to purchase Ronapreve as a treatment drug for COVID-19, subject to Medsafe approval. How far through the approval process is Medsafe, and when is it likely that the public will be notified of the result?”
Here is the MoH reply, received a few days ago:
Medsafe has completed its approval process for the drug Ronapreve to treat COVID-19. This was approved on the 21 December 2021 and a press release is available on the Ministry’s website at: www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-releases/new-covid-19-drug-approved-can-treat-and-prevent-covid-19.
Although Medsafe has approved Ronapreve to treat COVID-19, Medsafe has advised that the drug should not be used as a substitute for vaccination against COVID-19. Getting vaccinated is the best way for New Zealanders to protect themselves, their whānau and communities from COVID-19.
Subsequent to receiving this, I searched quite a few MSM sites to see if this release was covered, and only RNZ covered it. I find that strange – surely the approval of a new drug to treat Covid-19 patients is worthy of reporting, as good news, isn’t it? But then I remembered that good news isn’t part of the agenda.
I asked around a lot of friends and associates if they had heard that Ronapreve was now available if they got sick. None had. But almost all of them had heard that we must “boost, boost, boost like crazy”, with crazy being a very apt word in the circumstances.
So here we are Dear Readers, if you get Omicron, or Delta, and the chances of getting Omicron are quite high, go to your doctor and ask for Ronapreve. Hopefully there will be enough supply, which could be doubtful if Omicron runs through us like it is expected to do – Pharmac has only ordered 5,300 infusions.
Of course, the better course of action for everyone is to have the “safe, effective and non-experimental mRNA vaccine”.
No Minister 
Back in November, the MOH website had that Novavax would be available late 2021.
There are lots of folk waiting for that option.
But… nothing.
Nick Nick Nick – we have a Government that has proven that it is not capable of doing even one thing at a time. So Pfizer is the only covid drug they know how to make available.
Now be a good boy and do not rock the boat again until the Pfizer runs out. lol.
Thanks for that Nick. It is good news – sort of, given the small number of doses ordered.
Back in 2020 I had wondered why the government was not talking about any treatments for C-19 at all, let alone monoclonal antibodies, which seemed the most effective. I put it down to cost on the latter and the usual incompetence on the former as the government pinned all their hopes on lockdown.
Then in 2021 when they continued to ignore treatments I figured it was no longer incompetence but an autistic approach of thinking the Pfizer vaccine was the only solution and they weren’t going to allow anything to slow that down.
Now I’m back to thinking it’s incompetence, although I suppose it could be that they think it’ll hurt their new plan of total reliance on booster shots.
I wonder if they’ve only purchased 5,300 because that’s their omicron worst case scenario of hospitalisations out of the team of 5 million?
Maybe the Pfizer contract limits options in quantity and choice?
It’s all about the shots – whatever it takes to get people to take the shots.
Have been enjoying listening to Kim Iverson, who recently ranted about this very problem. This myopic insistence that the only solution to covid are the shots and there is no information or help when a person gets covid! Kim has been looking after jabbed & unjabbed with covid recently and rants from home in this video about the situation in California.