As originally published in The Hill Times on September 18, 2024.
Focus on embracing the rapid pace of scientific discovery, letting innovation drive policy, and fostering collaboration across the health-care system.
The world of life sciences is evolving at an unprecedented pace, offering new hope through groundbreaking treatments for diseases that were once considered untreatable. Yet, as our health-care system confronts these scientific advancements, it also faces the challenge of adapting to ensure Canadians can access the medicines of tomorrow without unnecessary delays.
Canada can either seize the opportunity to lead, or risk falling behind. This fall, there are three critical areas that must guide the government’s approach as Parliament reconvenes, and policies are shaped for today and the coming years.
First, parliamentarians must understand that science is driving unprecedented innovation in health care. This is a golden era for scientific discovery, where breakthroughs in fields like gene editing, precision medicine, and vaccines are rapidly reshaping our understanding of what is possible. Over the past few years, we have seen vaccines developed at an astonishing pace. Today, the industry is revolutionizing our approach to treating rare and chronic diseases and cancers, offering hope to millions of Canadians and people around the world.
Yet even as science moves forward at lightning speed, Canada’s health-care system is still designed for a different era. To build a system that can keep up with today’s—and tomorrow’s—scientific advancements, we need infrastructure that supports advanced diagnostic testing and precision medicine. As we move toward more personalized treatments tailored to the genetic makeup of individual patients, the health-care system must be equipped to deliver these innovations quickly. This means more than just approving new treatments; it requires investment in testing, imaging, data collection, and integration across health-care systems to ensure patients receive the right treatment at the right time.
Second, we need to let science and innovation drive health-care policy, not political point-scoring. Too often, the debate around health-care policy in Canada gets bogged down in discussions about cost. While managing health-care costs is essential, we cannot afford to ignore the value that innovative treatments provide not just to individual patients, but also to society as a whole.
Consider the economic impact of someone who has access to a life-saving drug. They can return to work, contribute to the economy, and live a fuller life. That’s not just a health-care outcome; it’s a societal benefit. Yet, our current system tends to focus narrowly on short-term cost containment rather than long-term value.
Instead, we should embrace new models of health-care investment, including outcomes based or risk-sharing agreements that link payment for new drugs to the results they deliver for patients. Such approaches are already being used successfully in countries like Germany and Australia, and there’s no reason why Canada shouldn’t follow suit.
Third, we must acknowledge that no single entity can tackle the complex challenges of modern health care alone. Collaboration will be our key to success. Governments, health-care providers, pharmaceutical companies, and patient groups must work together to co-create solutions that ensure timely access to innovative treatments. This requires more than just talking about collaboration—it demands real action.
There are examples where collaboration is already making a difference. Initiatives like Target Zero—which aims to improve access to new medicines by reducing time of review between Health Canada and the Canadian Drug Agency to zero days—demonstrate that when regulatory bodies and industry work together, patients benefit. But we need more of this, and we need it on a larger scale.
To that end, a crucial first step is ensuring that the government’s health-care priorities reflect the voices of patients. Too often, policies are developed without meaningful patient input, leading to gaps in care and delayed access to life-saving treatments. A patient centered approach to policymaking is not just the right thing to do—it’s the smart thing to do, and we owe it to Canadians.
As Parliament returns this fall, we must focus on these three pillars: embracing the rapid pace of scientific discovery, letting innovation drive policy, and fostering collaboration across the health-care system.
Canadians deserve a health-care system that matches the extraordinary scientific advancements being made today. Let’s make sure we give them nothing less.
Bettina Hamelin is the president of Innovative Medicines Canada.
Photo: The Hill Times / Andrew Meade
