Health Committee on March 28th, 2007

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Okay, your time is gone. Just for clarification for the committee, you said that in your report, you compared it to the United States. Do you do the median as well? Do you compare it to other countries for the generics?

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

Yes, we do for the generics.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you.

Mr. Batters, you have five minutes.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, because I have only five minutes, I'm just going to go as quickly as I can, so if you could give me just short, succinct answers, that would be great.

Thank you both very much for appearing.

The first question is, please list for me all the brand-named drugs that PMPRB is currently examining or the drugs that you are currently examining as potentially being excessively expensive. Exactly what drugs are we talking about? If you could read them into the record as quickly as possible, that would be great.

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

Do you want the name of the manufacturer also?

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

No, just the drugs is fine.

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

The first one is Adderall XR, which is a drug for attention deficit hyper--

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

I don't need to know what they're for. I only have five minutes.

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

The others are Airomir, Concerta, Copaxone, Penlac, Quadracel and Pentacel, which are vaccines, Risperdal, Risperdal Consta, and Strattera. Then there are NicoDerm and Dovobet, which are ongoing from the past.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Benoit.

You've received a 46% increase in funding in the 2006-07 fiscal year, and you're asking for a further 76% increase in your funding this year. I know that the provinces are involved in regulating prices within their own provincial formularies, and isn't there significant overlap between what you do and the price determinations that are made by the provinces?

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

What we regulate are the ex factory prices, so somebody may say, well, I pay a lot more than that in the drugstore. What happens after it leaves the factory and goes through all kinds of middlemen until finally it gets to the person who puts it in their mouth is that there are added amounts that go in there that we have absolutely no control over. The provincial drug plans, the big ones like Ontario's, for example, that have a lot of clout, will negotiate prices, which some of the smaller drug plans have difficulty negotiating. This is causing some angst out there. For example, Atlantic Canada has higher drug prices.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Okay, so there are some separate functions. There is some duplication, but there are some separate functions as well. Is that fair to say?

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

That's right.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Perfect. What percentage of sales revenue do generic companies devote to research and development?

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

I don't know the answer to that.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Would it be fair to say none, or virtually none? For generic companies versus R and D companies, companies that do excessive research and development--and I can name a litany of them--versus say, Apotex, is it fair to say that they spend much less of a percentage of their revenue on research and development?

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

I don't know the answer, and that may be a politically wrong thing to give a wrong answer to. If we could, we'll look that up for you, Mr. Batters.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

If you could get back to the committee on that, I'd really appreciate that, Dr. Benoit.

Dr. Benoit, earlier you said that pharmaceutical companies would claim, perhaps, that they invest less in this country, perhaps because of over-regulation by PMPRB. That was just a hypothetical you threw out there. If someone were to say that to you, how would you answer that question?

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

Well, there has to be a balance, and the balance between excessive prices and increased investment is one that some political body needs to sort out. The target of 10% was chosen. You might say that 8.8% is not far off of 10%, but it is less than 10%.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Okay.

I have one final question. Is it fair to say that, at least to some extent, there are fewer new revolutionary medicines being introduced in Canada because the process and the length of time to get a DIN number in Canada is very arduous and there is a enormous backlog? Is that fair to say?

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

I don't know if it is fair or not, but the DINs and all of that are delivered by Health Canada, which is.... We're in their portfolio, but we have nothing to do with that.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

The companies are still discovering new molecules, but I hear from companies time and time again that the problem is actually getting them approved to bring to market because of the enormous backlog that exists. Do you hear the same thing?

[Dr. Brien Benoit]

You would have to ask a witness from Health Canada that question, because it's beyond our purview.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Okay, thank you very much.