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By Jean-Christophe Bélisle-Pipon

As detailed in Part 1, Ontario government just enacted the Health Sector Payment Transparency Act, a Canadian first in terms of transparency. The act requires that “transfers of value” (or payments), related to medical products (drugs and medical devices), between a payor and a recipient be reported to the Health Ministry. The Act gives the Ministry unprecedented powers to require, analyze, and publish such data online.

A Transformational Act?

Will this act radically transform the practices and the public knowledge that we have about the financial relations of the medical industry? The effective implementation of the regulations will tell us. However, the fact that Innovative Medicines Canada (formerly known as Rx&D, IMC is the organization representing the interests of the pharmaceutical industry in Canada, like PhRMA in the US) has concerns about the Act is a rather positive sign that this legislation might result into pro-social changes. IMC is invoking both ideological concerns (industry’s interactions with HCPs imply cooperation rather than influence) and logistical concerns (“if the threshold for payments is low, a sales representative could easily lose a receipt and forget to report it”), as well as its  own commitment to limiting undue influences. Read More

By Jean-Christophe Bélisle-Pipon

While Canada is often viewed positively for its public, comprehensive, universal, and accessible health care system, not all is rosy. Canada often lags behind other countries in terms of pharmaceutical policies. Sometimes, this is advantageous (e.g., delaying the approval of a product to wait for more clinical data or real-world efficiency, so to better assess risk-benefit and determining the maximum selling price), but more often simply a problem: until recently, transparency in Canada was more a buzzword than a strong and assumed government stance.

However, a few days ago in Ontario, the omnibus Strengthening Quality and Accountability for Patients Act received royal assent, thus enacting the Health Sector Payment Transparency Act. This clearly marked the beginning of shedding light on the financial relationships and payments to health care providers and organizations made by the medical industry (pharmaceutical and medical device companies), the explicit goal being to strengthen patient trust in the health care system (including research and education activities) by allowing patients to assess whether their health care providers are subject to influence by industry and to foster more informed choice. While the United States enacted the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (PPSA) in 2010, which requires payment disclosure, this is a first in Canada.

The main provisions of the Act Read More