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ARTICLE · 05 JULY 2012

Recent Pricing Issues In Canada

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In Canada, pricing of pharmaceuticals is affected primarily in two contexts: under the federal price control scheme, and as a result of pricing on provincial formularies.

CanadaFood, Drugs, Healthcare, Life Sciences
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Gowlings TV
Jane Clark
Jane Clark
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In Canada, pricing of pharmaceuticals is affected primarily in two contexts: under the federal price control scheme, and as a result of pricing on provincial formularies. In the case of the latter, provinces agree to a formulary price for medications, but negotiate agreements on volume discounts and other incentives from manufacturers in return for the listing.

Federal: The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board

In recent years, the PMPRB focused on resolving old matters with no new hearings since 2009, and no new notice of hearings issued in 2011. The trend has been that a growing number of issues are resolved by Voluntary Compliance Undertaking (VCU); effectively, a form of settlement (see Figure 1).

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