Political Quotes

“Let me explain to you exactly how that process works. It is not a free market. They cannot set their prices. They have to negotiate with a board, and it is called the Patented Medicines Price Review Board. That board sets the prices in Canada. They do so in the following way. The statute mandates that the price of most new patented medicines may not exceed the price of the most expensive drug marketed in Canada that treats the same disease. So let's take HIV/AIDS. You have a regiment of drugs that are out there to treat it. Someone comes on the market with a brand new AIDS drug that may cure AIDS or may substantially improve the quality of life for someone with AIDS. In Canada, they cannot, under the statute, charge more than what the highest priced drug already in the market is, which may have an improving effect on the quality of AIDS but may not be one of those transformational drugs. So, No. 1, statutorily they are limited. No. 2, the price in Canada of a drug constituting a breakthrough drug, in therapy, may not exceed the median of its price in seven countries. Let me tell you, all of those specified countries, with the exception of the U.S.--that is one of the seven--the other six, interestingly enough, are all price-controlled countries where the government sets the prices. So it is a spiraling-down effect.…”