Southern Alberta Myeloma Patient Society

News & Updates

Urgent - Petition to Repeal PMPRB Changes

Please take a moment to read the petition request from the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders below. This petition concerns the PMPRB proposed changes, which would come into effect on July 1, 2020. The closing date for signatures is Wednesday, May 20, 2020.

Attention Canadian Rare Disease Community,

Please take a moment to read and sign the Petition to Repeal Changes to the PMPRB.

You can access and sign it here: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/ (direct link to sign below)  

Petition Details

Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament assembled

Whereas:

  • New medicines and vaccines help save and improve the lives of Canadians;  

  • New therapeutics are revolutionizing medical care by, inter alia, targeting specific genes to address severe rare diseases like cystic fibrosis;  

  • Medicine and vaccine developers already negotiate competitive discounts and rebates with governments and private benefit drug programs, and are already subject to federal and provincial regulations regarding prices;  

  • Canadian patients and families desperately need medicines that keep them out of hospitals and vaccines and therapeutics to combat COVID-19;  

  • Regulation and guideline changes to the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board scheduled to come into effect on July 1, 2020, are so unclear, uncertain and unreasonable with respect to the regulated price ceilings of new medicines in Canada that developers have chosen to not introduce new medicines to the Canadian market and have reduced clinical research in this country; and  

  • As a result of the changes to the federal price regulations, many Canadians with cancer, cystic fibrosis and other life-threatening diseases do not have access to medicines and clinical trials that could save, prolong or improve their lives.


We, the undersigned, citizens of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to repeal the changes to the Patented Medicines Regulations that were adopted in August 2019; engage in substantive, transparent and evidence-based consultations with stakeholders on any changes to the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board; and work with patients, clinicians, provincial health systems, researchers and medicine developers to inform the federal price review regime so that the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board does not obstruct access to new medicines and clinical trials.

Angela Craig