On April 14, 2022, the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Health, issued a statement which stated that:

“After consulting with stakeholders on a way forward in March 2022, Health Canada will be moving forward with the implementation of the new basket of comparator countries and reduced reporting requirements for those medicines at lowest risk of excessive pricing. These Amendments will come-into-force on July 1, 2022.”

“The Government will not proceed with the Amendments related to the new price regulatory factors, nor with the requirements to file information net of all price adjustments. This will be reflected in Canada Gazette in late Spring 2022.”

MedAccessBC has asked for this in its submissions all along. That is, this approach to start ONLY with the implementation of the new basket of comparator countries as soon as possible to help reduce excessive prices of pharmaceuticals in Canada and NOT implement the Amendments related to the new price regulatory factors and evaluations that would prove time consuming and costly and likely to have detrimental unintended impacts to the access of medicines for Canadians.

We commend the Government of Canada for listening to stakeholders and recognizing and acting on the input provided by stakeholders such as MedAccessBC and others.

We are happy to see that the Government of Canada is committed to improving access to quality medicines for Canadians.

It is noted that the Government will not proceed with publishing these in the Canada Gazette in late Spring 2022.

Please see the Statement from the Minister of Health at: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2022/04/statement-from-minister-of-health-on-the-coming-into-force-of-the-regulations-amending-the-patented-medicines-regulations.html