- Page navigation anchor for RE: New generic pricing scheme maintains high prices and risks of shortagesRE: New generic pricing scheme maintains high prices and risks of shortages
In a recent article, Morgan and Persaud are bitterly critical of Canada’s drug plan managers for a recent extension of a generic drug pricing agreement.(1,2) They point to a review showing that New Zealand has lower generic drug prices than Canada and propose that Canadian provinces should employ a tender system, like New Zealand, to get the same low prices. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to appreciate why Canada uses a different system for pricing generic drugs, accusing the provinces vaguely of succumbing to pressure from pharmacies and manufacturers (which, they allege, have hundreds of millions of dollars in profits at stake) or of political cowardice.
The problem is that Morgan and Persaud have proposed importing one component of an entire system. Possibly we could try to replicate the overall New Zealand system in Canada, but that would involve a much larger project. Just trying to mimic one part of the New Zealand model won’t generate New Zealand’s outcomes.
Morgan and Persaud point to the case of atorvastatin, a blockbuster drug that sells for around $0.22 per 20mg pill in Canada and $0.02 per pill in New Zealand. The case of atorvastatin is a particularly apt example: why didn’t Canada just use the same tendering process to get low prices for atorvastatin? I can offer an answer: if Canada had set up a tendering process for atorvastatin, we would still be paying full price for the branded product Lipitor, and no generics would be available at all. I...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: Dr. Hollis reports personal fees from Apotex, personal fees from Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Assoc, outside the submitted work.
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