AIMS // Atlantic Institute for Market Studies

Drug companies will invest in finding the next miracle treatment only if they can recoup their expenses. The search for disease-defeating and life-prolonging drugs is hugely expensive. Industry estimates that it costs around $1-billion to develop each major new drug. Can Canada afford to continue selling cheap drugs and how long will the United States tolerate Canadians taking a free ride on their research dollars? In a commentary carried in various US newspapers and the well regarded web forum TechCentralStation.com, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley argues that research won't occur unless someone is willing to pay for it. That someone has been the American consumer.

In this piece from the Ottawa Citizen, AIMS Fellow in Health Care Policy, Dr. David Zitner, amplifies the theme of AIMS recently released research paper, Public Health, State Secret. He emphasizes that, although the Canadian government is spending huge amounts of tax-payer money on health information, they are gaining little useful knowledge about what is really happening in the current system. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the field of pharmaceuticals. Dr. Zitner stresses that although Canadians ingested over $15 billion in drugs and complementary medicines last year, no one knows whether their affects were harmful or helpful. No Canadian province has routine systems to systematically inquire and learn about the outcomes of pharmaceuticals, although they would inform clinicians about the results of the care they provide, and save lives. Dr. Zitner is Director of Medical Informatics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Publication: OC, January 28, 2002

In this op-ed that appeared in the Providence Journal, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley explains why drug re-importation from Canada will not solve the problem of rising prescription drug costs in the United States. He reminds Americans how the US legal system imposes a huge tax on health care that Canadians do not have to pay.

In this op-ed that appeared in the Buffalo News, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley explains why drug re-importation from Canada will not solve the problem of rising prescription drug costs in the United States.

As Ottawa and the provinces debate the scope of a national drug coverage programme, CBC Radio asked AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley to comment on whether a national Pharmacare programme is a good idea.

Around the world, politicians are forcing drug companies to lower their prices. They deny the companies’ products access to hospital dispensaries, create buying cartels, reduce patent protection or any one of a host of other manoeuvres. We have frequently done this in Canada. The result, drug prices have been lowered for medical marvels already discovered. That is fine, but are we stalling discoveries? Is the cost of these policies needlessly prolonged suffering? In this column from the Halifax Chronicled Herald and Moncton Times and Transcript, AIMS President Dr. Brian Lee Crowley examines how human ingenuity in its destructive form threatens the flow of pharmaceutical innovation.

Canadian and US Think Tanks Release Joint Evaluation on Universal Health Care in Maryland

AIMS tackles issue of quality of hospital care on behalf of patients and their families.

How to reform drug policy, the latest paper from the AIMS series on Canadian pharmaceutical policy

On 16 May 2006, AIMS gathered the leading experts on the gap in prescription drug coverage from across the country.

AIMS president Brian Lee Crowley discusses important issues surrounding the prescription drug debate.

Reaching consensus - AIMS invites discussion through the Canadian Health Care Consensus Group; AIMS tackles the catastrophic drug coverage problem in Atlantic Canada; and the institute publishes two new papers.

In this edition of The Beacon there's news on the catastrophic gap in drug coverage; a new paper that shows aquaculture is FARMING, not fishing; and a lesson in resource revenue economics.