Health committee  Just to quickly update you on Vanessa's Law, it's fantastic on paper, but implementation has been incredibly slow thus far. The power to compel drug companies to keep studying post market is in force now, and hopefully it is being used. The power to make information more transpa

Health committee  Yes, absolutely. The best evidence we have shows you would save money.

Health committee  This is not a novel answer, but I think it's really important to pay attention to the U.K. This is because of its obvious strengths as a national pharmacare example, and the kinds of things it's done that Dr. McCabe just mentioned, but also because of some of the tribulations ass

Health committee  Is this for me?

Health committee  I think it's a great question. I think there would have to be a lot of follow-up work about exactly how that body would be constituted, with representation from provincial decision-makers and other kinds of experts. We'd need to do a lot of thinking about how exactly that would

Health committee  I see a public body as more able to strive towards key goals around fairness and access such that these really tough decisions.... Many of them will be challenging decisions. If you are a patient without any treatment options, you are going to consider that medicine essential, bu

Health committee  That kind of international collaboration will be a lot harder if we have multiple payers and health technology assessment bodies. I think it adds to the argument for a national decision-maker so that we can collaborate. You're seeing this already to some extent when a few Europea

Health committee  If I indicated what you're suggesting, I might have misspoken. What I meant to say was not that we would adopt any kind of blanket rule about excluding these, but instead, in the case of orphan drugs, or drugs that target rare diseases, the evidence base is that much more limited

Health committee  In a word, yes. Part of the challenge we face is that it's really hard in the current system, because of the patchwork that exists, to ensure that this occurs across the board and that therefore there is some level of fairness, and also that we're taking advantage of the kinds

Health committee  I think that's the assumption behind the jurisdictions that were mentioned, the U.S. and U.K., about moving in that direction, that it's necessary. I'm not aware of specific examples where it's been fully withdrawn pursuant to those kinds of agreements, but I think there's an inc

Health committee  It could potentially. The point I would make is that it could also elevate the standards for demonstrating improvement over existing therapies. What we see right now, unfortunately, is that a lot of new medications aren't terribly important for advancing care and health care outc

Health committee  Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Matthew Herder. I'm a lawyer and an associate professor in the faculties of medicine and law at Dalhousie University. My research focuses on laws, policies, and practices around pharmaceutical drugs. My public