Will the government stop the changes to PMPRB?

There has been significant opposition to new regulations, coming into effect on Jan. 1, 2022, from multiple stakeholders who express concerns that this will hollow out Canada’s medical R&D sector and delay the introduction of new drugs here by as much as a decade.

Many patient groups are urging the federal government not to bring in changes to the countries that Canada uses to compare drug prices, as recommended by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which operates at arm’s-length from the Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos, pictured on Oct. 26. Many stakeholders worry that the regulations give too much power to an agency that operates at arms length from the government and is reluctant to hear (and sometimes openly dismissive of) input from key stakeholders like the patients who are most affected by drug prices, writes Doug Earle. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY DOUG EARLE

December 1, 2021

If you’re a Canadian who lives with a rare disease, needs precision cancer medicine, or who has come out of the COVID pandemic convinced that Canada needs stronger domestic life sciences capacity, you should be worried. In Canada’s life sciences sector, it’s five minutes to midnight. You coul...

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