Pharmaceutical Industry: Economic And Political Factors In Canada

Today, Canada is the only industrialized nation without a national pharmacare plan (“Campaign for a National Drug Plan” 1). Currently, each province has its own pharmacare plan and this creates differences in medication prices across the nation. Price depends on drug efficacy, how commonly the drug is used, and to what extent the provincial government decides to subsidize the drug. Overall, drug coverage in Canada depends on a person’s age, income, and the province they live in. Today, one in ten Canadians cannot afford the medications that their doctors prescribe (“Pharmacare 2020” 2). Their lack of

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a health-related organization that we were not familiar with and to investigate the organization. For this paper, the organization that will be investigated will be the Canadian Agency of Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH). The following sections will discuss what the organization is about, its mission and mandate, how the organization is structured, how are they funded, and why does the organization exist and do the work that they accomplish.

1 Kaiser Family Foundation Report on the Uninsured. Available at http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7451.cfm. 2 Danzon, P., et al. “The Impact of Price Regulation on the Launch Delay of New Drugs.” Health Economics, 2005; 14(3): 269-292. Available at http://hc.wharton.upenn.edu/danzon/html/Journal_Articles.htm. 3 The Boston Consulting Group. “Ensuring Cost Effective Access to Innovative Pharmaceuticals – Do Market Interventions Work?” April, 1999. Available at http://www.bcg.com/impact_expertise/publications/files/Ensuring_Cost_Effective_Access_Innovative_Pharmaceuticals_Apr1999.pdf 4 Thorpe, K. et al. “Differences in Disease Prevalence as a Source of the U.S.–European Health Care Spending Gap.” Health Affairs (Web Exclusive) Oct. 2, 2007. Available at www.healthaffairs.org.

"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in

The Canadian government must implement an equitable national pharmacare program in which medically necessary prescription drugs are covered

Market failure appears when there is a failure in allocation of goods and services. When the market is unsuccessful, the government is called to intervene and correct the failure. Over the years, government participation in the pharmaceutical market has been more wide-ranging than any other good or service. With the government’s ability to regulate, mandate, inform, finance and provide, their intervention to overcome market failure can be beneficial for the economy. Market failure plays a significant role in today’s economy.

In Canada the services, medication and hospital fee are controlled by the government, this created a better outcome for the security of the citizen. This regulation can lead to major saving in term of the GDP per capita paid by the government in this regard. The government negotiates drug prices so by doing that prices are more affordable for the people. It’s not necessary the uses of co-pays and deductible, but if any type of charged for any reason this can still be a dissent price by the patient. As result of this Canadian are proud and feel secured by the contribution of the social

Anyone who has purchased prescription medications has probably wondered why they cost so much, and rightfully so. Medication prices in the United States have been on a steady increase for decades, however, prices have been drastically increasing as of recent. Pharmaceutical companies have tried to justify these price increases due to the demand, the high cost of research, and the high costs of development and approval. Notwithstanding, the extent to which the prices have increased is not justifiable. Americans should be against these high medication prices and take action because pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage of our health care system in order to capitalize from the sick. In order shed some light on this issue, we must examine the magnitude, scope, and consequences of these rises in price.

Canada’s health care system “can be described as a publicly-funded, privately-provided, universal, comprehensive, affordable, single-payer, provincially administered national health care system” (Bernard, 1992, p.103). Health care in Canada is provincial responsibility, with the Canada Health act being a federal legislation (Bernard, 1992, p. 102). Federal budget cuts, has caused various problems within Medicare such as increased waiting times and lack of new technology. Another problem with Medicare is that The Canada Heath Act does not cover expenditures for prescriptions drugs. All these issue has caused individuals to suggest making Medicare privatized. Although, Canada’s health care system consists of shortcomings, our universal

Prescription drug coverage is fragmented as provinces and territories have control over which drugs are included in their basket of services, and which are not. The ability for each province/territory to decide what prescription drugs are covered has led to great variability in which drugs are covered and the method of coverage across Canada. Variation in drug coverage plans is the biggest problem in Canada’s health care system as it is responsible for the high costs of prescription drugs. These high costs are associated with Canadians halting treatment due to unaffordability. Furthermore, nonadherence to prescription medications proceeds to increase health care costs via increases in emergency room trips.

This report provides an analytical strategic review of the global pharmaceutical industry; its origin, evolution,

Porter’s Five Competitive Forces Analysis is a framework developed by Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School for study of industry analysis by analyzing five competitive forces which define industry and its business strategy. These five competitive forces determine the competitive advantages, disadvantages and attractiveness or profitability of industry.

Specify the types of country risks that pharmaceutical firms face in international business. How do the political and legal systems of countries affect the global pharmaceutical industry?

Yes, there is an impact on the pharmaceutical company, like those in the US as a result of differential prices between that country and other nations.

There are advantages of starting a pharmaceutical firm in India. It has emerged from being an enzyme-producing firm to a biotech powerhouse under the guidance of Ms Kiran M. Shaw. They have a well-established pharmaceutical industry that has been growing since 1947. After the purchase of Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd. and India Drug and Pharmaceuticals Ltd. they were able to compete with the MNC’s (Multi National Corporaton) from overseas (Kalegaonkar, Locke, Lehrich, 2008, p. 2). In the beginning the pharmaceutical industry saw substantial growth. “By the beginning of the 21st century, over 20,000 pharmaceutical companies were operating in India” (Kalegaonkar, Locke, Lehrich, 2008, p. 2). “The pharmaceutical industry in India is ranked third