PHARMAC (NZ government medicines funding agency) established a set of preferences ‘PHARMAC labelling preferences for prescription pharmaceuticals’ to establish a set of preferences for naming and labelling of pharmaceuticals it would consider for funding in tenders. PHARMAC will also consider features such as costs and savings, health needs, health benefits, suitability, securing supply and benefits associated with harmonization with other global regulations. However, at this time, PHARMAC does not have any preferences which are leaning towards machine readable codes or Serialization requirements.

There is expectation that New Zealand will adopt requirements which Australia develops; however, Australia currently does not have any mandatory requirements for Serialization of prescription pharmaceuticals.