Health Canada announces changes aimed at dropping prices of patented drugs
Posted August 9, 2019 7:47 am.
Last Updated August 9, 2019 2:18 pm.
OTTAWA — The federal government says it is making changes that will better protect Canadians from excessive drug prices and make patented medicines more affordable.
Health Canada is unveiling long-awaited changes to patented medicine regulations —a move Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor bills as the biggest step to lower drug prices in a generation.
The amendments include allowing what’s known as the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board to consider whether the price of a drug reflects the value it has for patients.
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix says the money saved by the changes will be spent on helping people get the help they need faster.
“Prescription drugs are growing in cost by hundreds of millions of dollars and that’s why we’ve done the bio-similars initiative and the generic drug initiative and all the other initiatives that we’re taking, so that we can increase coverage for people,” he says.
Dix admits it’s not clear how soon the prices will drop though.
“We would have liked if they had done this last year, so it’s going to take a while for this to take effect,” he says. “But these issues are going to be before us for the next couple of decades.”
The change also includes adjusting the list of countries Canada uses to compare itself when setting drug prices, so that prices are judged against countries that look like Canada in terms of population, economy and approach to health care.
Health Canada says Canadians pay among the highest patented drug prices in the world, after only the United States and Switzerland.
It says the amendments will save Canadians approximately $13 billion over 10 years on patented drug costs.