Health committee  We do have experience. We do it in British Columbia. We do it in Ontario. Other countries are doing that. We know we evaluate them differently. Specific panels with specific expertise to evaluate orphan drugs have been developed. That's certainly doable.

Health committee  I'm not arguing for no access to private insurance, but I also think we can look at the private insurance industry. I think there's a paradigm shift going on there, too, where historically they have covered everything, and that's changing. We've seen it in the news in the last fo

Health committee  I guess my point was, I'm not arguing that every drug should be covered. If I'm saying everybody doesn't have access, I'm merely suggesting the evidence doesn't suggest that the drug has a significant enough impact on quality or quantity of life, or that the cost is such that it

Health committee  Again, that's a question around international pricing control, which isn't my area of expertise. Looking at what's happening with the PMPRB and the challenges that they're having in court now, and looking at the ways they are trying to control prices—and they're having challenges

Health committee  That would be my opinion, yes. That's exactly the premise the pan-Canadian pharmaceutical alliance was developed under, to have a consortium to increase buying power. That would be my understanding and my belief.

Health committee  Yes, I do, because I think we need to control the prices. I think if we look at where the prices are going with pharmaceuticals, particularly given the paradigm shift in drug development, we're looking at more development of personalized and precision medicines with drugs that ar

Health committee  No, I cannot. I'm afraid nobody has a really good process in place.

Health committee  I'm going to speak about the orphan drug environment because that's where I've worked the most. We had a study done out of Ottawa that actually looked at orphan drug or rare disease drug decision-making internationally. What's interesting is that lots of countries have processes,

Health committee  Sure. I'll start. This is the area I am most familiar with. I propose this as—for want of a better term—an area of low-hanging fruit, where we have a model, which wasn't perfect, in the CFDI. I think that does provide a really good starting point for a model to be built specific

Health committee  I do not know the answer to that or what other countries have done. I know there's evidence on both sides. We know Steve's paper says there will be $8 million in savings, and we've seen other evidence saying that it's maybe not quite so much. I know there's a debate about what t

Health committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much for the invitation to speak with you today. Just by way of disclosure, I'm the principal investigator in a CIHR team grant evaluating policy and reimbursement decisions around rare disease. I'm also a member of the B.C. Ministry of Hea