[Viva] FW: CTAC Daily Info - March 30

Tue Mar 30 23:17:40 PDT 2010

Subject: CTAC Daily Info - March 30

In this e-mail:

1.    Pfizer to pay $142M for drug fraud

2.    Looks deceiving in Ontario’s generic-drug strategy 

3.    Renewing Leading Together - Share your feedback! / Renouveler Au
premier plan- Partagez vos idées!

1.

Pfizer to pay $142M for drug fraud

Sales of drug total $300M annually in Canada

Last Updated: Friday, March 26, 2010 | 3:28 PM ET 

CBC News <http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.html>  
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/03/25/gabapentin-ubc.html 

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been ordered to pay $142 million US in
damages for fraudulently marketing gabapentin, an anti-seizure drug marketed
under the name Neurontin.

A federal jury in Boston ruled Thursday that Pfizer fraudulently marketed
the drug and promoted it for unapproved uses. The jury sided with
California-based Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Kaiser Foundation
Hospitals, the first to try a gabapentin case against Pfizer.

Data revealed in a string of U.S. lawsuits indicates the drug was promoted
by the drug company as a treatment for pain, migraines and bipolar disorder
— even though it wasn't effective in treating these conditions and was
actually toxic in certain cases, according to the Therapautics Initiative,
an independent drug research group at the University of British Columbia.

The trials forced the company to release all of its studies on the drug,
including the ones it kept hidden.

A new analysis of those unpublished trials by the Therapeutics Initiative
suggests that gabapentin works for one out of every six or eight people who
use it, at best. The review also concluded that one in eight people had an
adverse reaction to the drug.

"The much larger majority of people will not get any benefit and many of
them will have chronic neurotoxicity or poisoning of the brain," said Dr.
Tom Perry of the Therapeutics Initiative.

Dr. Harry Pollett, a pain specialist in North Sydney, N.S., calls gabapentin
a so-so drug with potentially serious side-effects for patients. These
include drowsiness, balance problems, fogginess and edema, or swelling.

"Weight gain is a very common problem and I see that a lot," Pollett said.

The drugs represent a waste of money for Canada's health-care system, said
Perry, who questioned why some doctors continue to encourage people to take
the drug even though the patients are not benefiting.

"We have been using probably somewhere in the order of around $300 million a
year in Canada recently and this drug has been overused since the late
1990s," Perry said. "So, do the math. It's probably well in excess of a
billion dollars."

Pfizer defends its actions and its drug. The company has already been hit
with $430 million in penalties and fines for fraudulently promoting
gabapentin in the U.S.

2.

Looks deceiving in Ontario’s generic-drug strategy 

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty watches Tariq Francis performs a
demonstration in a chemistry lab at Carleton University in Ottawa yesterday.
The Liberals' plan to lower generic drug costs is also an interesting
experiment, one nowhere near its conclusion.

The Liberals still haven't gotten into the nitty-gritty of their fight with
pharmacies

Adam Radwanski
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/columnists/adam-radwanski>  

Published on Friday, Mar. 26, 2010 10:46PM EDT Last updated on Saturday,
Mar. 27, 2010 1:53PM EDT 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/looks-deceiving-in-ontarios-gen
eric-drug-strategy/article1514240/  

For months, questions have swirled around the pharmaceuticals industry about
how Ontario’s government will try to lower the cost of generic drugs.

Premier Dalton McGuinty’s officials have good reason to settle the matter as
quickly as possible. Certainly, they want to do so before Lipitor – the
cholesterol drug that generated roughly $1.2-billion in Canadian sales in
2009 – comes off patent soon.

But appearances to the contrary, we’re little closer to answers about the
Liberals’ strategy after Thursday’s budget than we were beforehand. It’s
just that now, more people are paying attention.

Predictably, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan touted the imminent drug savings
in his budget speech – the first time the Liberals have made much effort to
publicly sell their reforms. But less predictably, the government also gave
some observers the impression that it was already moving through with those
reforms, by including them in its budget implementation bill.

In reality, all the budget bill will achieve is the really easy part. By
changing some definitions, it will pave the way for the government to do
away with “professional allowances” – the industry quirk that wildly
inflates the price of prescriptions. But it won’t actually eliminate them,
nor will it address the many challenges that will arise from doing so.

The allowances, which are basically rebates paid by generics manufacturers
to pharmacies in return for stocking their products, are the main way that
drugstores make their money. They’re currently capped at 20 per cent of the
sale price for prescriptions bought by the Ontario Drug Benefit, the
province’s public plan; there’s no cap on the private side, so they’re
vastly higher.

Officials believe that by eliminating the allowances altogether, they could
reduce generic drug prices to as low as 25 per cent of their brand
equivalent. (The ODB currently pays 50 per cent of the brand price, and
private plans pay more than that.) That would allow for hundreds of millions
of dollars of savings on the public side alone.

But the government can’t simply pocket its savings and cheerfully wander
away from the table. There may be room to cut into pharmacies’ profits,
which are considerable. But with dispensing fees paid by the ODB having
remained stagnant for two decades, the stores will actually be losing money
on prescriptions if at least part of the professional allowance revenues
aren’t replaced.

Therein lies the hard part. 

The province will try to return part of the money by paying pharmacies to
take a more active role in health-care delivery, through consultation and
the delivery of services such as vaccinations. It will have to increase
dispensing fees, and will probably provide a premium payment to rural or
small-town pharmacies to alleviate concerns that they’ll go out of business.

But unless the government somehow puts all the savings from lower generic
prices back into pharmacies, which seems highly unlikely, the stores will
fight the reforms tooth-and-nail. It’s not just Ontario they’re worried
about; it’s the rest of the country too, which tends to follow the biggest
province’s lead on pharmaceuticals policies.

There may even be a legal battle brewing, with Shoppers Drug Mart
contemplating starting its own generics line – a move that would raise
questions about pharmacists hawking their own products.

For now, even most insiders are just guessing at what happens next. Even the
budget bill’s reference to replacing professional allowances with “ordinary
commercial terms” led to a flurry of spin and speculation about just how
tightly – or how loosely – the government plans to regulate private sales.

Only a few officials really know what’s in the cards. And budget-day
appearances notwithstanding, they’re not showing their hand just yet.

3.

Renewing Leading Together - Share your feedback!

Now that 2010 is upon us, a renewal process of Leading Together: Canada
Takes Action on HIV/AIDS (2005-2010) is underway. The perspectives of
people living with and at risk of HIV/AIDS, front-line workers and the
organizations they represent, researchers, volunteers, and medical
providers will be key to this renewal process.

Please share your voice and ideas in this renewal process, by responding
to the Leading Together Renewal survey by April 8, 2010.  A link can be
found at  <http://www.leadingtogether.ca/> http://www.leadingtogether.ca/ .

Thank you,

Terry Pigeon and Sharon Baxter, Interim Co-Chairs
Leading Together Championing Committee

Backgrounder:
What is Leading Together?
Leading Together: Canada Takes Action on HIV/AIDS (2005-2010) is a
national blueprint for the Canadian response. It was developed through a
large scale consultative process involving community groups, people living
with and/or at-risk of HIV/AIDS, health care providers, researchers, and
governments across Canada. It calls for consolidated action on all fronts
and lays out specific actions and targets to achieve its bold vision,
namely that "the end of the epidemic is in sight".

What is the Leading Together Championing Committee?
The Leading Together Championing Committee (LTCC) promotes and champions
the widespread use of Leading Together. It is our goal to ensure that this
document remains a tool that guides all sectors of Canada's response to
HIV/AIDS

____________________________________________________________________________
_____

Renouveler Au premier plan- Partagez vos idées!

Le processus de renouvellement d'Au premier plan : le Canada se mobilise
contre le VIH/sida (2005-2010) est en cours.  Les opinions des personnes
vivant avec le VIH/sida et des personnes susceptibles de le contracter,
des travailleurs de première ligne et des organisations qu`ils
représentent, des chercheurs, des bénévoles et des dispensateurs de soins
médicaux seront essentielles à ce processus.

Partagez vos idées au sujet de ce processus en remplissant le sondage sur
le renouvellement du document Au premier plan au plus tard le 8 avril,
2010. Vous trouverez ce sondage en ligne à
 <http://www.premierplan.ca/index.html> http://www.premierplan.ca/index.html
.

Merci,

Terry Pigeon et Sharon Baxter, Co-présidents intérimaires
Le Comité champion Au premier plan

Renseignements Généraux :

Qu'est-ce qu'Au premier plan?
Au premier plan : le Canada se mobilise contre le VIH/sida (2005-2010) est
un plan d'action national élaboré dans le cadre d'un processus de
consultation à grande échelle auquel ont participé des groupes
communautaires, des personnes vivant avec le VIH/sida ou susceptibles de
le contracter, des fournisseurs de soins de santé, des chercheurs et les
gouvernements au Canada. Ce plan d'action préconise une intervention
concertée sur tous les fronts et présente des mesures et des objectifs
précis pour que se concrétise sa vision audacieuse : « la fin de
l'épidémie de VIH/sida est en vue ».

Qu'est-ce que le Comité champion Au premier plan?
Le Comité champion Au premier plan (CCAPP) a pour mandat de promouvoir

l'utilisation à grande échelle d'Au premier plan. Nous voulons que ce
document demeure un outil qui oriente tous les secteurs de la lutte contre
le VIH/sida au Canada.

Béatrice Cardin

Communications Manager

Canadian Treatment Action Council (CTAC)

Phone/Fax:  (416) 410-6538 

 <mailto:ctac at bellnet.ca> ctac at ctac.ca 

w <http://www.ctac.ca/> ww.ctac.ca

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