Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for inviting us to present at these hearings.
Thirty years ago, four of us started Canada's first breast cancer advocacy group because we believed in the potential of these groups to support and promote the needs of patients. Unfortunately, in the mid-1990s the government withdrew funding from patient groups, and many turned to the pharmaceutical industry for support.
For the past 20 years, I have researched these partnerships, as have many others. A large body of evidence now exists to show they compromise the potential of groups to inform drug policy. The research shows that through financial support and social relationships the industry has captured a large segment of the global patient advocacy movement. By “captured”, I mean that these patient groups express a consistent narrative that aligns with industry interests. We now have two discourses on drug prices within the patient advocacy movement. This difference is starkly evident in the organizations that have intervened about the PMPRB regulations and guidelines.
We believe the new PMPRB regulations and the proposed guidelines will be effective tools to cap the constant upward spiral of drug prices that prevents increasing numbers of patients from gaining access to needed drugs. Excessively high prices distort the allocation of health resources. They threaten the sustainability of health care systems on which all patients depend. At issue in these guidelines are the rules that determine whether many Canadians can afford to pay for their prescription drugs.
Many reports over many decades have recognized that an effective universal health care plan must cover essential drugs, and recent polls show that 86% of Canadians support a national pharmacare plan. We are alarmed by the extent of opposition to the PMPRB by pharma-funded patient groups. Their voices are completely out of proportion to those of the independent patient groups, groups that work with low-income people and other civil society groups that support a national entirely public pharmacare program.
When the PMPRB revised and weakened the first version of its guidelines, we were dismayed. Was this pullback based on evidence or on the intense lobbying by the industry and patient advocacy groups? Drug policy analysts in all countries recognize that the pharmaceutical industry is pricing new drugs at whatever the market will bear. Many of these expensive drugs do not improve patients' survival or their quality of life. Some have been recalled because of the level of harm to patients.
Patient advocacy groups have a responsibility to press for reforms that will limit these harms to patients and threats to our health system. This is hard if you're in a partnership relationship with an industry that benefits from high prices. This is why Breast Cancer Action Quebec will not accept any funding from pharmaceutical companies, nor does any of the groups or advocates with whom we collaborate.
Canada needs transparency laws that will allow the public to examine the relationships the industry has cultivated with patient groups. We do know these relationships are extensive, not only in Canada but in all high-income countries. The industry strategies used to cultivate patient advocates, including paying for dinners, media training and unrestricted educational grants, have been used for decades to cultivate physicians. They work. They may even be more effective with patients than they are with physicians, given the vulnerability of patients and their more limited resources.
The new cystic fibrosis drug Trikafta and its precursor drugs are a flashpoint for much of the anger directed to the PMPRB. From the evidence we've seen, these new CF drugs are that rare product: a breakthrough treatment. We want Canadian CF patients to have them, but simply being an effective drug doesn't justify price gouging. Drugs are supposed to work. Otis Webb Brawley, the former chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, argues that “patient groups get money from the drug and device companies because they...[make] claims so outrageous that even special interests dare not make them”. Some of the claims that cystic fibrosis and rare disease patients are making about the PMPRB fit that description. I refer to tweets like, “@DougPMPRB You are promoting the death and suffering of Canadian citizens and the blood is on your hands.” I also refer to the emotionally charged images in the ad series, “Stop changes to the PMPRB regulations”, which was sponsored by 13 patient organizations called “Protect Our Access”.
The PMPRB didn't block Vertex from bringing Trikafta to companies sooner; that was the company's decision. Notably, patient advocacy groups in other countries have challenged Vertex directly, as they should, and not their cash-strapped public health programs.
Patient charities supported by the pharmaceutical companies often develop financial assistance programs to help patients pay for the excessively high-priced drugs. This doesn't solve the problem of patient access to high-cost drugs. It serves to maintain an unsustainable drug pricing system that is enormously profitable to pharmaceutical companies. It keeps drug prices high.
In conclusion, partnerships between pharmaceutical companies and patient organizations contribute in myriad ways to inflate drug prices and to skew patients' advocacy in favour of the industry. Canada needs a national, publicly funded drug plan and policies to support it.
Breast Cancer Action Quebec recommends that the new PMPRB guidelines go into effect on July 1, 2021.
I thank you. Jennifer and I are happy to answer any questions.