U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a new effort to lower prescription drug prices for Americans that targets foreign nations — both for the lower prices they pay and the potential to import cheaper drugs from those countries.
Yet the federal government and policy experts say any potential impacts from the executive order signed this week — including supply shortages and higher prices — aren’t likely to hit Canada.
“I don’t think this is actually likely to be a direct threat against Canada,” said Michael Law, a professor at the University of British Columbia and the Canada Research Chair in access to medicines.
Trump’s order calls on the health department, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to broker new price tags for drugs over the next month.
If deals are not reached with the drugmakers, Kennedy will be tasked with developing a new rule that ties the price the U.S. pays for medications to lower prices paid by other countries.“ We’re going to equalize,” Trump said at a Monday press conference. “The rest of the world is going to have to pay a little bit more, and America is going to pay a lot less.” In Canada, drug prices are overseen by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which told Global News it protects Canadian consumers by reviewing prices and ensuring they’re not “excessive.”
“If the price of a patented medicine is found to be excessive by a Hearing Panel, the Board has the power to order a reduction in the price to a non-excessive level and to enforce that order,” a spokesperson said in an email. “The Board is also able to order a rights holder to offset any excess revenues.”
The spokesperson added the review board receives publicly-available prices for drugs sold in 11 “comparator” countries — including Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and Sweden — that factor into prices set in Canada.“ Since the U.S. is not in this basket of comparator countries, the (board’s) price review would not be directly affected by price changes in the U.S.,” the emailed statement said.
Regulatory agencies like the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, which negotiates prices with drugmakers on behalf of provincial, territorial and federal health insurance plans, are generally why drug costs in Canada are lower than the U.S., experts say. Dozens of other countries have similar national regulators.
Trump wants to ‘equalize’ and lower drug prices. Could Canada be impacted?
