{"id":15210,"date":"2025-02-05T18:10:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T18:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/torontotribune.ca\/index.php\/2025\/02\/05\/how-a-trade-war-with-the-u-s-could-hit-canadas-medicine-supply-national\/"},"modified":"2025-02-05T18:10:42","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T18:10:42","slug":"how-a-trade-war-with-the-u-s-could-hit-canadas-medicine-supply-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torontotribune.ca\/index.php\/2025\/02\/05\/how-a-trade-war-with-the-u-s-could-hit-canadas-medicine-supply-national\/","title":{"rendered":"How a trade war with the U.S. could hit Canada\u2019s medicine supply – National"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Despite a pause in U.S. tariffs, there is looming uncertainty and concern about how a potential trade war could hit Canada\u2019s medicine supplies.<\/p>\n

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Canada has been given a 30-day reprieve from U.S. tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump<\/a>, but that has done little to allay fears in the pharmaceutical realm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a concern here that any sort of tariff war on this space could send ripples throughout the supply chain,\u201d said Mina Tadrous, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto\u2019s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.<\/p>\n

Tadrous told Global News the concern stems from the fact that the supply chain for medications is so global that the production of each drug crosses multiple borders before Canadians get the finished product from their local pharmacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the structure of how tariffs work can have [an] add-on effect to how the drug pricing works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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In Canada, prices of pharmaceutical products are controlled by federal bodies.<\/p>\n

The prices of patented, brand-name drugs are monitored by the federal government\u2019s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) and negotiated by the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA), which negotiates on behalf of Canada\u2019s federal, provincial and territorial governments.<\/p>\n

For non-brand name drugs, \u201creimbursed prices of generic prescription medicines are negotiated by the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance and set by provincial or territorial governments on their drug benefit plan formularies,\u201d said Jeff Connell, vice-president of corporate affairs at the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association (CGPA).<\/p>\n

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\u201cThese negotiated prices also apply to Canadian patients who have drug coverage through their employer\u2019s plan, or pay for their prescription drugs out-of-pocket,\u201d he told Global News.<\/p>\n

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Canada is \u201cheavily\u201d reliant on other countries like the United States, India and European nations for active pharmaceutical ingredients and finished dose products, according to a 2022 report prepared for the CGPA.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cAlmost all [active pharmaceutical ingredients] used to manufacture medicines in Canada come from abroad,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are concerns when Canada relies predominately on a handful of foreign countries to secure sufficient supply in order to manufacture medicines domestically.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not yet clear if drugs will be exempt from Trump\u2019s paused threat of across-the board 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods, minus energy which would face a 10 per cent tariff.<\/p>\n

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