The Forbidden Pharmacy: making medicines access impossible to ignore

This July, Breast Cancer Foundation NZ joined 16 other patient organisations to create the Forbidden Pharmacy: a physical representation of New Zealanders locked out of vital, life-saving medicines.

In an election cycle, medicines access can easily become an abstract conversation about budgets or funding lists. The Forbidden Pharmacy made it hard to ignore.

Over two days at Auckland's Shed 10, an immersive public installation displayed more than 200 medicines and treatments locked away in glass cabinets. These are treatments that are safe, effective and global standard of care in countries all around the world, including Australia, the UK and Canada. 

But the campaign was never really about medicines, it is about the 600,000 New Zealanders waiting on the other side: mums, sisters, colleagues and friends. People who know treatment exists but whose choices are narrowed by what they can afford and how much financial security they can sacrifice.

For people affected by breast cancer, navigating diagnosis and treatment is already hard. Add decisions about spending savings, selling a home, relying on Givealittle, or going without, shifting responsibility from the health system onto people at their most vulnerable.

New Zealand's medicines gap is not marginal. Between 2011 and June 2025, Australia publicly funded 215 modern medicines, versus 86 here. Of 142 funded there but not here, 115 are standard of care internationally. Cancer medicines are the largest share of that gap, and New Zealand took almost twice as long to fund them.

Amanda and Judith showed what it means at a human level.

Amanda was diagnosed with aggressive triple-negative breast cancer in her thirties, raising two daughters while building a home and career. Keytruda was offered to reduce recurrence, but at over $8,000 every three weeks, it didn't feel like a genuine option. Her family and community rallied around her. Their response was extraordinary. The fact it was necessary was not.

Amanda said "It's not something you should be fundraising for... every second page is someone funding a cancer treatment. Aren't we embarrassed?"

Judith has spent around $90,000 of her own money on olaparib, funded here for some ovarian cancers but not breast cancer. She's now weighing treatment that could consume more of her savings, describing a "cancer paradox... where you spend money for treatment to live, but might not have money to live on."

Their stories capture the impossible choices families face: clinical decisions become financial ones, a price on time with family, and access dependent on personal wealth.

To Amanda and Judith: thank you for trusting us with your stories, your voices gave the campaign its meaning and ensured it couldn't be reduced to a discussion about budgets or process.

We support Pharmac's independent role in assessing medicines. But assessment without sufficient funding doesn't create access. An investment increase equivalent to around 0.1% of GDP could clear the backlog of medicines waiting to be funded, not an impossible problem, but a collective decision about what we value.

Do we keep asking families to carry the cost of under-investment, or build a sustainable medicines budget that keeps pace with need?

The Forbidden Pharmacy made the gap visible. For people affected by breast cancer, it's visible every day: in treatment they cannot choose, money they must find, and time they may not have.

Sign your support on the open letter by visiting the Forbidden Pharmacy website here.