Bioscience companies to promote new medicines, technology at March’s hill day

A science fair — of sorts — is slated for the Manitoba Legislative Building this March.

But instead of high school students, major medicine-producing companies will set up booths, showcasing their wares to provincial bureaucrats.

Bioscience Association Manitoba is hosting its first “hill day” to promote the use of new medicines and medical technology. Governments too often purchase the lowest cost drugs, the association’s president said.

“When you do that, you’re always going to end up with the oldest technology,” Andrea Ladouceur said. “The newest technology is always going to be a higher price.

“(We don’t get) the same advantages of the new medicines. That means people come to the hospital more often, that they have to take more pills.”

Bioscience Association Manitoba didn’t have data on how much money it believes the province has lost, in the long run, by not adopting new medicines.

The province didn’t share how much it spends through its pharmacare program by end of day Friday.

Canada spends the most on health care among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Its spending amounts to 11.2 per cent of its gross domestic product; the OECD average is 9.2 per cent, according to the Canadian Medical Association.

Still, wait times in emergency rooms are lengthy. Canadians find it increasingly difficult to access primary care, a 2023 Commonwealth Fund survey found.

And so, Bioscience Association Manitoba has tapped a dozen companies to set up in the Legislative Building’s rotunda on March 10.

Medicure will be one of the pharmaceutical companies attending. The Manitoba-based business plans to spotlight its drug tackling PNPO deficiency, which causes epilepsy in children. The drug is undergoing final clinical trials.

“It’s extremely expensive to develop new therapies,” said Albert Friesen, CEO of Medicure. “Pharmaceutical companies need… some way of getting reimbursement for the high-risk investments that they’ve been making.

“It makes treatments very expensive.”

Development takes billions of dollars, which is why drugs cost thousands of dollars annually, said Friesen, who’s been in the industry for five decades.

Medicure sells into the United States first because of the bigger market. Canada is a secondary location.

Canada lacks strong early-stage capital financing of new medications and, sometimes, a “predictable pathway” to reimbursement for drugs, said Kimberley Hanson, chief external relations officer of Breakthrough T1D Canada.

The organization advocates for Canadians with Type 1 diabetes. Canada has fallen behind Australia and the United Kingdom in screening people for the disease, Hanson said.

New medication has been proven to delay the onset of Type 1 diabetes in people at risk by an average of two to three years, but “it’s not recommended for (reimbursement) by any of our agencies,” Hanson continued.

She called the upcoming hill day the “smartest possible approach” to bring government’s attention to lagging innovation.

Patient outcomes and quality of care are at the centre of every decision, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said in a statement.

“Decisions about medication procurement in Manitoba’s publicly funded health-care system are guided by clinical evidence and expert advice,” Asagwara said.

The provincial government announced $16.8 million for two biological research centres at the University of Manitoba Friday. The new Prairie Biologics Accelerator will focus on biomanufacturing and vaccine development.

“It’s important to… have that whole bank of vaccine candidates, so that (someone) can choose the appropriate one for the appropriate virus,” said Mario Pinto, vice-president (research and international) at the University of Manitoba.

“We should have government investing in these different technologies, because one has to be ready for the next viral outbreak.”

Bioscience Association Manitoba is holding a forum the day before its legislature event to connect research organizations with hospital foundations, post-secondaries and government. The forum is invite-only.

It has also planned a policy summit for March 11 to connect the public and private sector.

Ladouceur said she’s spent the past two years growing the association’s relationship with the provincial government. She sits on the province’s U.S. Trade Council, which convened Friday.

Ladouceur said she’s advocating for the province to pilot new medicines before committing to a large purchase. Type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis are good areas to start, she said.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com