HESA Committee News Release
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Standing Committee on Health |
HOUSE OF COMMONS CHAMBRE DES COMMUNES OTTAWA, CANADA K1A 0A6 |
Comité permanent de la santé |
NEWS RELEASE
Health Committee Reports on the Common Drug Review
Ottawa, December 12, 2007 - The Standing Committee on Health today tabled a report in the House of Commons entitled Prescription Drugs - Part I The Common Drug Review: An F/P/T Process. From April to June 2007, the Committee heard from representatives of the F/P/T funded Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health that is responsible for the Common Drug Review along with representatives of federal and provincial governments, the pharmaceutical industry, patient advocacy groups, health professionals, researchers and academics.
The Common Drug Review (CDR) is the single Federal/Provincial/Territorial (F/P/T) process that is used to review both the clinical efficacy and cost-effectiveness of new drugs and new indications for old drugs. This review process, which takes place after Health Canada has approved a drug for sale, leads to a recommendation regarding formulary listing under participating publicly-funded drug insurance plans. Publicly-funded plans include the provincial and territorial drug insurance plans, except that of Quebec, as well as six federal drug insurance plans. Committee members agree that the CDR is a good F/P/T process but that further improvements are necessary.
“We want first and foremost to highlight the successful partnership between governments that has permitted the CDR to streamline the formulary listing process and reduce redundancy across the country” stated Joy Smith, M.P. (Kildonan-St. Paul), Chair of the Standing Committee. “But the process is not perfect and the Health Committee would like to see some changes.”
The Health Committee report calls on the federal government to work with provincial and territorial governments to improve the openness and transparency of the CDR. This would foster greater public trust in the CDR. Further, the report recommends that the CDR develop a separate process for the review of drugs for rare diseases and for innovative, or first-in-class, drugs.
Mrs. Smith acknowledged that this important work was primarily conducted in Parliament’s previous session: “I would like to congratulate all the members of the Health Committee, particularly those in the last session, who participated in this study. Their hard work and the resulting recommendations will further strengthen the CDR.”
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