Activities of the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance: an Observational Analysis

The pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA) is a public agency responsible for collectively negotiating drug listing agreements with manufacturers on behalf of Canadian public payers. With a goal to study the activities of the pCPA, Angela Rocchi, Principal, Athena Research, and Fergal Mills, Director, Strategic Consulting at Innomar Strategies, completed an observational study of all drugs handled by the pCPA since its inception in 2010. The authors set out to analyze the "alignment of Canadian [health technology assessment (HTA)] agency recommendations and pCPA negotiation decisions; the role of health economics in pCPA activities; and the prioritization of product negotiations."

Results of their study were published in the Journal of Population Therapeutics & Clinical Pharmacology on 7 August 2018. Overall, their analyses indicated that health technology agency recommendations from the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), the centralized Canadian HTA agency for all provinces (with the exception of Quebec), were closely aligned with pCPA negotiations, and pCPA oncology drug negotiations were clearly prioritized over drugs in other therapeutic categories. In addition, the authors suggested that there was "an evolving role for health economics in Canada's reimbursement process."

^{Rocchi A, Mills F. Activities of the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance: an observational analysis.
J Popul Ther Clin Pharmacol,Vol 25(2):e12-e22; August 7, 2018.}