Two former insiders at Canada’s drug price regulator testified Tuesday that interference from federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos raised questions about the government’s closeness to the pharmaceuticals industry and jeopardized efforts to control spiralling prescription drug prices.
Douglas Clark, the executive director of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, told the House of Commons health committee on Tuesday that he was taken aback when Mr. Duclos sent a letter in November asking the agency to suspend its public consultations on price reforms. Mr. Clark said such a suspension was “precisely what the industry had called for.”