13 February 2019 - Quebec’s highest court has ordered the provincial government to restore full public coverage of Remicade, an expensive rheumatoid-arthritis medication the province had stopped funding for new patients as part of its quest to control prescription-drug spending.

The decision is a victory for Remicade maker Janssen, a unit of the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, and a blow to the Quebec government’s efforts to steer patients toward a new class of cheaper near-copycat drugs called biosimilars.

In a ruling released last month, the Quebec Court of Appeal found the province’s former health minister violated procedural fairness when, in February, 2017, he halted coverage of Remicade for patients who had never before taken the infused medication, which also treats Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and a handful of other chronic ailments.

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