iPolitics
By Charlie Pinkerton. Published on Mar 3, 2021 5:18pm
Dr. Andrew Morris, medical director of the Sinai Health System-University Health Network Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, appears before the House of Commons Health committee on Feb. 26, 2020. (Screenshot)
The federal government mishandled its procurement of COVID-19 treatments by spending an estimated $100 million on “effectively useless” drugs, says the doctor who runs a program that advises two Toronto hospital networks about medications.
In the fall, Ottawa announced major purchases of two drugs, remdesivir and bamlanivimab, shortly after Health Canada approved them to treat people with COVID.
On Sept. 20, the government announced it had bought 150,000 vials of remdesivir, but not how much it paid for them. But based on the US$390-per-vial price set by Daniel Day, the CEO of Gilead Sciences, which sold the drug to Ottawa, it can be estimated that Canada paid around $77 million for the batch, which was enough to treat about 25,000 patients.