29 May 2019 - The federal government has assured the pharmaceutical industry that new features of its plan to cut drug costs would apply only to new medicines, Health Canada said, offering some relief to drugmakers even as other regulations could still lower prices of medicines already on the market.

Drugmakers have argued that new regulations should only apply to newly approved drugs. The Health Canada clarification comes after draft rules published in 2017 sowed confusion over how the government would implement its plan.

The new features of the government’s proposed regulations, which would take into account cost-effectiveness of medicines and their likely impact on government budgets, would be limited to new drugs, Health Canada told Innovative Medicines Canada (IMC) and BIOTECanada, the patented drug industry’s main lobby groups, in a letter dated April 8.

Read Chronicle Herald article