28 August 2018 - The federal government’s plan to increasingly regulate the costs of pharmaceuticals could mean Canadians with cystic fibrosis and other rare diseases may soon lose access to new innovative drug treatments, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

Starting next year, the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board —a federal body that regulates the prices of all patented medicines in Canada—is planning to use new rules for establishing drug prices with the goal of lowering costs.

“Drugs for rare diseases are often very expensive because they are costly to develop and target a small number of patients, so when governments push too hard to lower prices, pharmaceutical companies have little incentive to launch these drugs,” said Dr. Nigel Rawson, Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of Regulatory, Reimbursement and Pricing Barriers to Accessing Drugs for Rare Disorders in Canada.

Read Fraser Institute press release