Competition Bureau will investigate big drug firms
Complaint lodged by National Union and other groups.
Ottawa - The Competition Bureau of Canada has agreed to investigate a
complaint filed against the pricing practices of major drug companies.
Initiated by the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE)
in co-operation with a coalition of unions, seniors groups and consumer
watchdogs, the complaint alleges anti-competitive practices in the
pharmaceutical industry.
"This is very encouraging news," National Union president James Clancy
said after learning Wednesday that the complaint had been accepted by
the bureau.
"Sick Canadians have been losing the policy battle over access to
affordable drugs because of the cozy financial alliance between the
federal Liberal government and brand name drug companies. We're hoping
that by side-stepping Parliament and going to the Competition Bureau,
we'll get a fair and independent review of the facts and some concrete
action to stop anti-competitive practices in the drug industry."
Backed by specific facts and arguments, the complaint accuses Canadian
brand name pharmaceutical companies of aggressively pursuing strategies
aimed at extending market monopolies for certain drugs and at delaying
consumer and patient access to lower-priced, therapeutically-equivalent
generic drug products.
'Evergreening'
One such strategy, commonly known as 'evergreening', involves obtaining
multiple patents leading to the same basic drug product, listing these
patents on the Canadian Patent Register, and obtaining successive
24-month delays in the approval of cheaper generic products.
"Canada's patent laws give brand name companies a license to print
money," Clancy says.
"They bask in absolute patent protection for a full 20 years during
which they can charge us whatever they can get away with, without any
fear of competition. Then they use a tricky legal manoeuvre, called
evergreening, to abuse patent laws and sick Canadians in their
hard-headed pursuit of profits. It ends almost any hope of our ever
being able to fill prescriptions with low-cost generic drugs. It's
anti-competitive. It's wrong. It should be stopped."
NUPGE, Canada's second largest union with 325,000 members nationally,
requested that the Commissioner of the Competition Bureau investigate
the 'evergreening' practices in Canada. The union argues that
'evergreening' artificially extends the patent life and market monopoly
of brand name drugs and delays or prevents the marketing of independent
generic products. The most obvious impact of the practice is to prevent
or reduce competition in the pharmaceutical market.
Obvious solution
"An obvious and easy way to apply some immediate though modest control
over soaring drug costs would be to eliminate the practice of
evergreening because this would provide Canadians with better access to
more sensibly-priced generic drugs," says Clancy.
"The Competition Bureau has the authority to tame brand name drug
companies that abuse patent laws by declaring the practice of
anti-competitive. We're optimistic they'll make that declaration. We're
optimistic they will come to that conclusion. Even George W. Bush has
come to this conclusion and recently announced measures to stop the
practice. Canada is now the only country in the world that allows the
practice to continue. We should catch-up to the rest of the world."
Web posted by NUPGE: 19 June 2003
Back to top of Document