A vial of insulin costs far more in the U.S. than it does in Canada.
Drug prices are set by Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board which sets price caps by comparing drug prices across a group of 11 countries. The US used to be included in the formula, but was removed from the group in 2022 — because US drug prices are an insane global outlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patented_Medicine_Prices_Review_Board
A group of Pharma companies including Pfizer and Merck have asked the Trump administration to put pressure on Canada. They are accusing the country of unfair trade practices.
America continues to try and drag down the rest of the world into the dirt with them, rather then fixing themselves and actually improving their country.
Why does another country with a private health care system even have a say in Canada’s mostly socialized healthcare? Are they worried if they make it the 51st state, the other 50 will demand healthcare?
Pay very close attention to how politicians respond to these threats and vote accordingly.
Because a bunch of Americans get their drugs from Canada (mail order or driving across the border if you’re close), and it really pisses off the pharma companies that they’re losing that money.
This will be a pre-arranged opportunity for Polievre to play the strong man and “fight back” for the cameras. Expect sudden media access while he performs.
Trump doesn’t give a fuck about the drug pricing, it’s a strawman. He knows he’s going to get told to fuck off, and if it’s important to him, it’ll be revisited after the election.
He tried shit here in Australia with our generic medicine. Even our right wing told him to get fucked
I hope you guys end up with the same result
A vial of insulin costs far more in the U.S. than it does in Canada.
Drug prices are set by Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board which sets price caps by comparing drug prices across a group of 11 countries. The U.S. used to be included in the formula, but was removed from the group in 2022 — because U.S. drug prices are an insane global outlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patented_Medicine_Prices_Review_Board
A group of Pharma companies including Pfizer and Merck have asked the Trump administration to put pressure on Canada. They are accusing the country of unfair trade practices.
Big pharma wants to play? Fine. Let’s just invalidate all their patents, spin up a crown corp to manufacturer generic versions, and export globally at actually fair prices.
We don’t have the manufacturing resources to replace all foreign suppliers overnight. Going pirate would require that all the manufacturing facilities be built, secretly, before hand because once we start we’ll be cut off.
If wikipedia is to be believed, we might not be as far off as you’d think. One third of our pharmaceutical consumption is already domestically supplied, and the amount we export amounts to about 40% of our consumption. Put the two together, and suddenly there’s 70% of our needs already met. Imports from non-us suppliers should be able to fill the gap while domestic production is ramped up.
Now obviously reality is going to be far more complex than this napkin math, but I’m just pointing out that our domestic production is not starting from zero, and is already at the scale where supplying our own relatively small market is not out of the question.
It’s not just building the factories. The FDA has to minutely inspect the factory and it’s procedures, and give it’s approval before they can sell anything made there. It takes time for that to happen, especially with the RIFs they’re pushing through (which is relevant because they also re-inspect the factories every … ?5? years and they’re having problems keeping up with the current batch of factories).
Don’t know, don’t care. Canada and Brazil are in two very different places economically.
Every supplier that’s lobbying for this should go on a list for extra attention during the price negotiations, and really put the screws to them.
Fucking scumbags.
