New federal drug pricing rules already delaying product launches and costing jobs, survey reveals
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he federal government's new price controls for patented medicines in Canada are already resulting in delayed product launches in Canada and in losses of jobs in the pharmaceutical industry, according to senior executives polled and interviewed for a comprehensive survey conducted for Life Sciences Ontario.
The 46 respondents included the leaders of 36 pharmaceutical companies, who were unanimous in saying the new federal price controls will have a negative impact. The executives were from both Canadian companies as well as Canadian affiliates of global pharmaceutical companies.
The most significantly impacted areas of business are in product launches and supply of products to the Canadian market, as well as in employment.
We intended to launch a new medicine in early 2021. Now that it's clear our price will be dramatically reduced, we suspended our regulatory submission because the original business case and pricing assumptions have been challenged, one executive said during in-depth interviews conducted as part of the survey. It has a compounding problem. If not launched in a timely way, it will have impacts on staffing, training, hiring support and patient programs.
Other areas that will be negatively impacted, the survey shows, are three important means by which Canadian patients get early or better access to new medicines clinical research (91%), patient support programs (73%) and compassionate access programs (70%).
The therapeutic areas most threatened by the changes will be cancer medicines, biologic medicines and rare disorders.
This survey refutes the federal government's position that there will be no negative consequences for Canadians from its new drug pricing policy, said Dr. Jason Field, President and CEO of Life Sciences Ontario. LSO strongly supports efforts to ensure affordable drug prices for Canadians, but not at the expense of a completive life science environment that supports clinical research and makes new, innovative medicines available to Canadians. The complex new rules and uncertainty of how they will be applied directly contradict the government's stated goal of building a competitive knowledge-based economy in Canada.
In my years of doing research I have never seen such unanimity about the impact of a new government policy, said Rachelle Deshaies, Senior Market Research Executive and Principal at Research Etc. I was also struck by the consistency of the comments and business rationale about why this new policy will impact pharmaceutical companies and their ability to launch medicines in Canada.
Complete survey results are available at bit.ly/MedPriceControlsSurvey.
✔️ New federal drug pricing rules already delaying product launches and costing jobs, survey reveals
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