One Liberal MP is demanding answers from pharmaceutical companies.
At a meeting of the parliamentary health committee, Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Marcus Powlowski claimed companies are not asking Health Canada to approve certain medications because they’re not satisfied with upcoming changes to prescription prices.
Powlowski addressed Mehmood Alibhai, the Director of National Policy and Patient Access with Boehringer Ingelheim Canada Ltd.
The MP said companies are declining to bring some drugs to Canada that have already been approved elsewhere.
“It looks to me like you’re holding sick Canadians for ransom because you want to prevent these new changes from going through in the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board,” he said.
He asked an official with drug company Boehringer Ingelheim Canada to confirm if those suspicions are true.
While Powlowski acknowledged pharmaceutical companies need to recover the cost of developing new drugs, what he sees “is not a pretty picture for the pharmaceutical companies.”
“It certainly looks to me as though the fact that the pharmaceuticals aren’t asking for Health Canada approval for their medications is a brazen attempt to get sick Canadians to start advocating on behalf of pharmaceutical companies to have changes put in that will basically allow you to maximize your profits in Canada,” Powlowski said.
Alibhai claimed changes to the federal Patented Medicine Prices Review Board’s guidelines would make their business less predictable and overstep provincial pricing rules.
