Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6322

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Weeks C.
Drug companies given extra dose of legal protection
CanWest News Service 2006 Oct 19

Full text:

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government quietly unveiled controversial regulations yesterday that will extend market protection for some drugs produced by brand name firms in a move critics predict will lead to higher costs for consumers and provinces already facing skyrocketing medicare bills.

The rules, which took effect earlier this month, increase exclusive selling rights for all brand name drugs to eight years from five, with an additional six months of protection granted to drugs involved in pediatric studies.

The change will affect 25 per cent of manufactured drugs — those that are not protected by the usual 20-year patents that exist on the majority of pharmaceuticals.

That means major pharmaceutical companies that produce brand name drugs will have, for eight years, exclusive right to sell certain products before generic companies — which sell cheaper versions of brand name goods — can step in.

The move is a “gift” to major pharmaceutical corporations and will result in dramatically higher drug costs for Canadians, said New Democratic Party health critic and former British Columbia health minister Penny Priddy.

“I just think that this is the betrayal of Canadian citizens and will deny them access to drugs longer,” Priddy said. “I think it puts the health of Canadians at risk.”

“Why the Canadian government would feel it necessary to grant brand name drug companies eight years of data protection in Canada is beyond us,” said Jeff Connell, director of public affairs for the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association.

If the changes had been in effect over the last five years, it would have meant an additional $600 million in drug costs and blocked companies from producing generic versions of about 20 drugs, including Zoloft, Pravachol, Wellbutrin and Celexa, he said.

“It will delay the introduction of some generic drugs,” Connell said. “They [companies] automatically get eight years of government-sanctioned and enforced market monopoly.”

However, the association representing Canada’s research-based pharmaceutical companies said the regulatory changes will serve to put Canada in line with other countries and will be an incentive for companies to produce new and innovative drugs here.