At a Glance / Aperçu

Company ordered to cut drug price

Canadian Medical Association Journal 1996; 155: 741
The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) has found a Canadian company, ICN Canada, guilty of excessive price increases for ribavirin, a drug used to treat lower respiratory tract infections in hospitalized children that are caused by respiratory syncytial virus.

In a ruling cited in its July Bulletin, the PMPRB also found that ICN Canada had been selling ribavirin "at an excessive price" since January 1994. Exercising its remedial power to the full extent permitted by the Patent Act, the PMPRB ordered the company to reduce the price from $1540 to about $200, which is less than the 1996 maximum nonexcessive price of $400. It also ordered the company to pay the federal government $1.2 million -- the board estimate of total excess revenues earned by ICN Canada.


| CMAJ September 15, 1996 (vol 155, no 6)  |