Europe's pharmaceutical industry is petitioning the European Union to expand patent protection of brand-name drugs in on-going free trade negotiations with Canada and India. If passed, the measure may cost Canada billions of dollars annually.
According to a report commissioned by Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association and released Monday, the plan would cost the Canadian healthcare system $2.8 billion per year.
"Canada would have the most extensive structural protection of innovative drugs of any country in the world," wrote the authors, Aidan Hollis of the University of Calgary's Department of Economics and Paul Grootendorst from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Pharmacy.
"Payers - consumers, businesses, unions and government insurers - would face substantially higher drug costs as exclusivity is extended on top-selling prescription drugs," they added.
According to the Vancouver Sun, the push by the European market is largely in response to moves by governments worldwide to restrain rising healthcare costs.
The financial burden of the measure would be placed on the provincial governments, with Ontario bearing the brunt with $1.2 billion in additional costs, the report found.
