Evidence of meeting #46 for Health in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was price.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Thank you very much.
Could you tell me if you know offhand the percentage of drugs with expired patents that have not yet been genericized?
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
I don't know that, Dr. Bennett, but that's something we could also get to you. That's the subject of our ongoing and next report, because we're very curious about that.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Okay.
In terms of the generic companies, you're so far just reporting. But eventually, according to Romanow, if you were going to be assessing whether prices are fair.... My understanding is that most of the generic companies are private companies, and you can't actually look at their books. Can you see how much profit the generic companies are making?
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
So how can you decide what's a fair price? For the brand-name companies, at least there's an annual report, and you can say, “Oh my God, look at all the money they're making.” But if the books aren't transparent, because it's a private company, how can you actually do your job?
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
We're not regulating the prices of generics. We're only reporting them.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
I think the recommendation in the Romanow report was that eventually, the review part of your mandate would include generic drugs. That was the intent, eventually. At the moment, you're just reporting, but eventually you would be able to give an opinion based on international examples about whether, for this huge amount of our public dollars that are going to generic drugs, we're paying too much for them.
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
I'm just being prompted here by my boss that--
Liberal
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
--the generic companies would file with us, but the generic industry is different from the patent medicine industry.
I'm having my eyes opened every time I listen to discussions about it, because there are a lot of free goods that are delivered in the generic business. And what is the value of those goods? There are all kinds of free goods that go back to pharmacy chains, and especially the big chains that control 500 drug stores. They negotiate very hard with the generics.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Has a product placement enticement or whatever been thought to be there? Somehow that's all part of their marketing budget.
In order for you to be able to do a non-patent medicine review process as you do for brand names, do you feel that you need to be able to look at the books of generic companies? My personal opinion is that if we're going to spend all of these public dollars on drugs, if we're going to buy stuff from them, in terms of whether it's first nations, whether it's all of these things, shouldn't we as parliamentarians be able to see their books? I would like to know how much profit there is, in terms of being able to review whether we're spending taxpayers' money in an accountable way.
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
Dr. Parrish, we don't regulate the profits. And if we were to have any kind of a regulatory function, then for sure they would have to report to us more than they're currently reporting. We would have to have regulations that they would be obliged to report.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Thank you very much, Ms. Bennett.
We will move on to Ms. Davidson.
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
I'm sorry, I mixed up your name.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
That's okay. We want to know why they don't get the Bobs and the Jims and the Mikes mixed up. It's kind of hockey sweaters, I've decided.
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
My glasses aren't strong enough and the names are sideways.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
That's okay; there are some similarities.
Anyway, Ms. Davidson.