There are differences, certainly, from the federal regulator perspective as to how we look at prices. That's one of the reasons that we are looking at framework modernization and examining the best practices internationally.
I can tell you, for example, that one of the things we look at when we look at a new drug that comes onto the Canadian marketplace is other therapies in the Canadian marketplace that have the same indication. When we do that examination and identify those drugs that have the same therapeutic indication as the new drug, we then look at the prices of those drugs in Canada and we allow the new drug to price up to the level of the highest priced drug in the therapeutic class.
That's just an example of what we do at the federal level. Obviously, when the provinces negotiate prices through the pCPA they would be looking at all the prices in all of the drugs that treat that condition. At the federal level we really let the highest priced drug that's already on the market set the bar, if you will.
In other countries there's a much more sort of average look, so there's an identification of all the therapeutic classes or all the therapeutic drugs that are in that class, but if there are alternatives—in Germany for example—they will include potentially generics in assessing what would be the appropriate or acceptable price for that new therapy. That's one example.
The other example is the way we consider international prices. Again, after the introduction we allow prices in Canada to go up to the highest international price after some years, whereas other countries will look at reviewing their prices on a more regular basis and achieve cost savings through price decreases over time. As time goes on, even if Canadian prices are in line with international standards, over time the gap tends to increase, as the data shows.