Evidence of meeting #4 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was research.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Is that why you are asking for additional funding through the estimates, so that you can go to court?
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
It is because of the marked increase in our workload. All of the things you mentioned are part of our workload.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Are you able to tell me what percentage of this amount will be spent on litigation?
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
We can say that half of the supplementary amount we requested and received will be spent on hearings.
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
That also includes the SPA. These funds are set aside exclusively to hold hearings. Therefore, if there are no hearings, we will not spend this money.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Your 2007 report states that you found problems with only 22 out of 1,114 drugs. Therefore the compliance rate is 98%. There isn't anything really egregious there that would require such a huge litigation fund. I was wondering about that.
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
Approximately 90% of drugs are in compliance with our guidelines, so let us say that 10% are priced too high. Let's look at the issue from another angle: I would say that this is a sign that our system works very well.
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
Suppose that only 10% of drivers exceed the speed limit. If 90% of drivers respect the speed limit, does that mean that the police should not pull over the 10% who exceed the speed limit?
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
I don't think that that's the goal. Supplementary appropriations are requested in order to carry out work within the limits of the guidelines, or the limits of the mandate of a program.
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
We are fulfilling our mandate. As you know, we are updating our guidelines, in view of addressing some of the problems raised during our hearings. We believe that modernizing our guidelines will provide increased flexibility to pharmaceutical companies so that they can set slightly higher prices.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Therefore, a portion of the budget will be used to complete this process. When is the expected completion date?
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
We hope that it will conclude in June. We were hoping that it would be completed in December 2008, but there were delays. Consultations with pharmaceutical companies are underway. Two weeks ago, in fact, we met with a small committee from Rx&D. Discussions are ongoing.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
You also carry out a number of generic drug assessments. You make a distinction between drugs that are—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Time is running out, Mr. Malo, sorry. We have to move on to Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.
Thank you, Mr. Benoit.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Thank you, Madam Chairperson.
I think we're going to have to carry on with Mr. Benoit. There are so many questions with respect to PMPRB and the amount of money as part of the supplementary estimates.
I have a couple of questions. The first has to do with the fact that you say you don't use manufacturing costs to determine the price of new drugs because prices are not related to the manufacturing costs.
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
Actually, that's one of the items we can look at if we cannot decide by other factors whether the price is excessive or not.
We've not yet done that. Going into the costs of making and marketing would be extremely difficult from a financial point of view. We're advised that companies would basically have to open their books and tell us how much it costs and so on. It would be extremely difficult to do that.
But this is one of the items in the Patent Act that we can look at.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
I would assume, then, that there's really no justification for doubling the price when the dose is doubled. We know that the manufacturing costs of doubling the dose are quite trivial, but companies often double the price, right?
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
I don't know if you're dealing with that. I guess I'm wondering if you're able to look at the price they're demanding and to reassess it based on the fact that they're inappropriately increasing the cost for a very small cost to the system.
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
Madam, we do actually look at that. We have a price test called the “reasonable relationship” test. For instance, if it's $1 for a 5-milligram pill, should it be $2 for a 10-milligram pill?
At the moment, this is one of the things being discussed in our revision of our guidelines. It's possible that the 10-milligram pill might bring an advantage to the patient, and the pharmaceutical manufacturers are allowed to make that case--and the reverse, a smaller dose.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Are you saying that you actually use that now, or is it under review?
Chairperson, Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
No, that is one of our tests.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
So can you tell us how many times you send a company back, telling them, “You can't charge that, because that's way too high in terms of the costs associated”? Is there any way you can tell us how often that happens?