To tack­le soar­ing pre­scrip­tion drug costs, Cana­da cre­ates new agency to ne­go­ti­ate prices; DMC clears phI­II test­ing of Cy­to­ki­net­ic­s' Am­gen-part­nered heart drug

→ Amer­i­cans aren’t the on­ly ones cry­ing hoarse about soar­ing pre­scrip­tion drug prices. In its 2019 bud­get un­veiled on Tues­day, neigh­bor­ing Cana­da has de­cid­ed to do some­thing sub­stan­tive about  drug prices (in con­trast to most oth­er na­tions with uni­ver­sal health­care, Cana­da does not cov­er pre­scrip­tions leav­ing its cit­i­zens to tack­le those costs with pub­lic or pri­vate in­sur­ance plans). Akin to the UK’s NICE, the coun­try is set­ting up the “Cana­di­an Drug Agency” that will be tasked with as­sess­ing the cost-ef­fec­tive­ness of drugs, and ne­go­ti­at­ing pre­scrip­tion drug prices on be­half of Cana­di­ans. “Pre­scrip­tion drug spend­ing in Cana­da has risen dra­mat­i­cal­ly over the last three decades — from $2.6 bil­lion in 1985 to $33.7 bil­lion in 2018…ne­go­ti­at­ing bet­ter prices could help low­er the cost of pre­scrip­tion drugs for Cana­di­ans by up to $3 bil­lion per year in the long term,” the gov­ern­ment said in a state­ment.

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