Thank you for the question.
I should clarify. I'm here today representing the off-patent industry—the generic and biosimilar industry. We fill 75% of prescriptions for about 20% of the costs, so 80% of the costs don't go through the companies that we represent here today.
However, as I have said twice already, we have a national system on pricing. Quebec participated in the latest round of negotiations for the first time. It is a national system. All provinces pay the same price. All payers in Canada pay the same price for generic medicines. When I say that we don't like bulk buying, I think we already have a national system that's negotiated with experts who run drug programs, leading to low prices, and that's what we want.
We are concerned with terms like “bulk buying” if it implies that there's going to be some attempt to drive pricing down lower. Countries like New Zealand are bulk buying. When we look at the data, we see that fewer drugs are available there than elsewhere, so that's not a system that we recommend. We have worked very hard with the pCPA, with the provinces, and the three federal drug plans to get a system, and we think that system should be respected.