Pricing changes for Canada’s patented medicines are on their way and stakeholders are anticipating the release of the updated guidelines. How will the guidelines be operationalized? How will the new pharmacoeconomic factors be implemented? In an effort to answer these questions, PDCI has attempted to reverse-engineer the proposed Pharmacoeconomic Value (PV) price reductions that were published in the updated CBA.

From our analysis:

• Due to variability in publicly available information, there will be major methodological challenges in using published ICURs for price reductions
• For some products, an overly simplistic calculation may have been applied which disregards numerous factors inherent to economic evaluations
• There exists a lack of transparency around how ICURs will be used to calculate price reductions under the new guidelines
• Issues for further consideration are identified, including the appropriateness of incorporating value into pricing decisions and the use of stated thresholds.

Pricing reductions may have a large impact on listing, product launch and prescribing decisions so they must be accurate when implemented.  As PDCI’s analysis has unveiled, there are still numerous concerns and uncertainties associated with the implementation of PV values in the updated PMPRB guidelines.

See the full whitepaper here.

Please contact Donna Lawrence, Director of HTA and Health Economics at
donna.lawrence@pdci.ca for any questions or further information.