Canadian medical advice different than United States

[KimberlyB40]

Hello hello!! So I went on to the Pfizer website to check out some possible medication interactions and the 1st thing it asks is if I'm a Canadian patient... ??? I read both sites and the medical advice differs a bit. I cannot think of 1 good reason why if I lived in Canada the medications I can or can't take with other meds would be different. Any insight? I know Canadian Healthcare system is different and pays for different things but isn't medical facts just that? Facts? Thanks for listening

[Kerryd22]

I’m in Australia and we have Universal Healthcare too. While a drug may be approved for use here it doesn’t automatically mean we can get it in the subsidised medication list. Subsidised medicines cost us a maximum of $30 for each script unless we’re on a pension card.

But Enhertu for example is approved for use but it costs thousands and thousands of dollars and if you want it you have to pay for it at the listed price - no subsidies. That’s because it’s considered too expensive and not efficacious enough for a large cohort and there’s something similar available already. It’s the same in the UK.

What it means is that the drug companies have to negotiate a more acceptable price for the government and then suddenly the Health Minister will announce that the government is kindly offering a new drug at subsidised rates. But there’s usually a protocol that’s attached to that so that limits the number of times you can use a particular type of drug and what it can be used with and which treatment line it has to be.

I think that’s what you’ve found out from your own research. The US allows for the use of drugs in a much wider range as long as your insurer will pay for it. And there’s Right to Try legislation which we don’t have.

[Casual]

I have no answers for you sorry. But that is so interesting. I will be keeping up to look for replies

[mariootsi]

I would think facts are facts no matter what country!

[Hazelgreen]

My guess is the question was relevant solely to the possible cost of the drug. The Canadian government pays far less for each drug than a private citizen would. I take ribociclib, for example, which the Canadian government buys, I've been told, at a cost of about $6300 per month. According to the research I did on the Internet, a private citizen would expect to pay about $17,000 per month for the same amount of the drug.