Posted by Michael Wonder on 20 Mar 2019
National drug agency touted as building block of Pharmacare plan
19 March 2019 - The Trudeau Liberals’ new budget promises a new agency to buy drugs in bulk and cut Canadian medication costs, the first step toward a national drug plan.
In a sign of just how expensive pharmacare could be, the government is also promising to spend $500 million a year, starting in 2022, just on subsidising drugs that treat rare diseases, which have few patients to split huge research and development costs.
The government said it intends to work with provinces, territories and other partners to develop the mandate for the national drug agency, with Health Canada to receive $35 million over four years starting in 2019-2020 to create an office to support the plan.
