Health committee  In terms of New Zealand, it's referred to in Marc-André Gagnon's study because that's kind of the source of the major savings, if we were to implement their purchasing strategies. In a nutshell, I remember asking the head of the New Zealand drug program, “How did you do this? Is

Health committee  Australia is even more like Canada in size and jurisdictional makeup, so instead of letting the states go on their own, it's the national government of Australia that establishes the formulary and establishes the bargaining with these multinational companies. That's actually a pe

Health committee  The 30% comes from.... Basically, if you analyze the impact of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, what they do is pick a basket of seven countries that have the highest prices to set Canada's introductory average, so it's an artificially high introductory price. Instead o

Health committee  Well, I do know why. At least my theory is, if you look at the history of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, it was established by Brian Mulroney's government as a gift to the drug companies. The rationale at the time was that if we gave them higher prices, they would giv

Health committee  I'm glad you referred to Connaught Labs, because that was a public company, a crown corporation. It's interesting. They were left certain patents by Banting and Best, given to the people of Canada, which were later privatized. So there is a precedent that the public sector can pl

Health committee  Thank you, Dr. Fry, for your questions. I have a very quick comment on the national pharmaceutical strategy. I was delighted to see that as part of the 2004 accord. I considered that the most important piece of the accord, aside from the secure financing. Therefore, I don't thin

Health committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you to the committee for this invitation. The Canadian Health Coalition was formed in 1979 in response to the crisis around extra billing that people were experiencing in the 1970s. We are pleased that we had three major federal parti