The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) will remove the United States and Switzerland from the list of countries to which it compares Canadian pharmaceutical costs to determine how much companies can charge consumers for drugs. It will add Japan, Spain, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands to existing comparators France, Germany and Italy. The PMPRB will also begin using the market price—what consumers actually pay on average, after rebates—instead of the sticker price in its calculations of what drug companies can charge for medications. The changes will take effect on July 1, 2020. (The Logic)

Talking point: The changes are designed to drive down prescription drug expenses by comparing Canadian bills to lower-cost countries, instead of higher-cost ones. The U.S. (US$1,011), Switzerland (US$783) and Germany (US$686) were the only countries in which consumers spent more per capita on pharmaceuticals than Canada (US$669) in 2015, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based foundation focused on health-care reform. Residents of the Netherlands (US$417) and Norway (US$401) paid out significantly less. Ottawa is also considering a national, federally-funded pharmacare program, which an advisory council recommended in June. If consumers pay less for their drugs, the cost of that program will be reduced. The savings come as some drug bills may rise in Canada. As my colleague Catherine reported in June, the USMCA, if ratified, will lead to higher costs for  biologic drugs—which are used to treat some cancers, as well as arthritis and other diseases.