An international comparative analysis of public reimbursement of orphan drugs in Canadian provinces compared to European countries.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Canadian government has committed to developing a national strategy for drugs for rare diseases starting in 2022. Considering this announcement, we conducted a comparative analysis to examine patient access to therapies for rare disease in Canada relative to Europe and the U.S.

Methods

Given its similarity to the Canadian health care system, we used Europe as the reference point to analyze all of the therapies with an orphan drug designation approved by the European Medicine Agency (EMA) from 1 January 2015 to 31 March 2020. We then contrasted access to these drugs in Canada (Health Canada) and the U.S. (Food and Drug Administration, FDA). We focused on: (1) the number of therapies for rare diseases entering the Canadian market; (2) the percentage of these the

SUBMITTER: Ward LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8895096 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature