Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended his government’s commitment to lowering medication costs after two resignations from the country’s drug-price regulator and assertions Ottawa is interfering with the reform process.
“We remain committed to ensuring that we’re lowering drug prices for Canadians,” Mr. Trudeau said at a press conference Friday. He did not respond to a question about whether it was improper for Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos to intervene in the process by requesting that part of the reform process be temporarily suspended.
It was a week of upheaval at the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board. On Friday, Douglas Clark, the PMPRB’s executive director, said he was stepping down, just days after the departure of a board member who said Ottawa is undermining the years-long process to rein in the high cost of prescription medications.
Mr. Clark will remain as a special adviser to the board as he transitions to retirement, according to a government press release published Friday. No reason was given for Mr. Clark’s departure and he did not respond to a request for comment.
On Twitter, Mr. Clark wrote that it was time to “let new leadership take a crack at advancing the public interest.”
Earlier this week, board member Matthew Herder, director of the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University in Halifax, resigned from the PMPRB, stating in a letter that the federal government has repeatedly stalled efforts to implement drug-price reforms and interfered with the work of the board, which is supposed to be independent.
Mr. Herder’s letter singled out the federal government’s request last year that the PMPRB suspend the long-awaited implementation of new guidelines designed to help prevent excessive drug pricing. He said the reasons for the government’s request “were largely indistinguishable in form and substance from industry talking points.”
Mr. Herder declined a request for comment.
Drug prices in Canada are among the highest in the world. The PMPRB has been working to implement sweeping reforms that would potentially save billions of dollars a year, but the process has been dogged by delays and roadblocks. The pharmaceutical industry has been opposed to many of the changes, saying they would limit access to new treatments and stifle innovation.
Last February, a Quebec appeal court ruled that some elements of the PMPRB’s new drug-price regulations were invalid, after a court challenge by a group of drug makers. The federal government did not appeal that decision, which left only one major piece intact: the list of comparator countries used to determine if drug prices in Canada are excessive.
Critics argued that the regulations became too watered down as a result. Meanwhile, guidelines still had to be put into force in order for even the remaining new rules to take effect. (Guidelines are required to help in the day-to-day interpretation and enforcement of regulations.)
In October, the PMPRB released draft guidelines. The rules were supposed to come into effect Jan. 1. But late last year, Health Canada requested the PMPRB board pause the process indefinitely, saying the draft contained a number of substantive changes from previous iterations and that more stakeholder consultation was required as a result.
This week, online media outlet The Breach reported that Mr. Duclos personally intervened to delay the implementation of the new guidelines after extensive lobbying from the pharmaceutical industry.
A spokesperson for Mr. Duclos said he was not available for an interview on Thursday or Friday. In a statement, Emelyana Titarenko said law requires the PMPRB to conduct consultations before publishing guidelines, and that is the reason Mr. Duclos reached out to the chair of the board.
In his letter, Mr. Herder notes that the PMPRB conducted multiple rounds of consultations, including hundreds of in-person meetings with stakeholders across the country, and that the guidelines were updated to include feedback.
On Friday, NDP health critic Don Davies called for an investigation into Mr. Duclos’s actions.
Carly Weeks