OTTAWA — An extension of drug patent protections in the Canada-EU free trade deal could end up costing Canadians an estimated $392 million a year, and federal coffers up to $270 million more annually, says a new report from the parliamentary budget officer.<\/p>\n
The report released Thursday sets out to put a price tag on a central — and controversial — element of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, that went into effect last September.<\/p>\n
Federal legislation that enacted the deal added two years to the existing 20-year patent protections for drugs containing new medicinal ingredients, which accounted for about one-third of all patented drugs sold in 2015.<\/p>\n
As a result, drug companies now enjoy a 22-year period of market exclusivity for eligible drugs before cheaper, generic versions can be produced and sold. Canadians spent $15.2 billion on patented drugs in 2015, says the review board responsible for monitoring patented drug prices.<\/p>\n
In the interim, the cost of pharmaceuticals will only continue to go up, said Philip Bagnoli, a senior economist who helped compile the report.<\/p>\n
“The higher drug prices are, which will go up in the future, the larger the gap is going to be between the patented price and the non-patented price,” Bagnoli said.<\/p>\n
“Drug companies will tell you that developing drugs is getting more and more expensive over time.”<\/p>\n
The estimated figures — based on 2015 data — are meant to provide an “illustrative analysis” to study the potential impact of the two-year extension, the report says. None of the drugs on the market were eligible for the extension when it was granted last year.<\/p>\n
The PBO’s cost figures don’t include the spending that would come from institutions like hospitals and long-term care facilities, which would cause the estimates to rise significantly — to more than $500 million a year in the case of consumers.<\/p>\n
Most of the additional government expense would go toward provincial public drug programs, the report says. Those costs, estimated at around $214 million a year, are borne by Ottawa under a commitment the former Conservative government made with the provinces in 2013.<\/p>\n
When the federal government first studied Canada’s patent laws, it was with the understanding that drug manufacturers would increase research and development conducted within the country, Bagnoli said.<\/p>\n
“Drug companies promised us they would do a lot more research in Canada in exchange for patent protection,” he said. “They haven’t lived up to that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OTTAWA — An extension of drug patent protections in the Canada-EU free trade deal could end up costing Canadians an estimated $392 million a year, and federal coffers up to $270 million more annually, says a new report from the parliamentary budget officer. The report released Thursday sets out to put a price tag on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7470,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469\/revisions\/7470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}