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The bureau is investigating the industry under sections of the Competition Act dealing with restrictive trade practices, which allow competition tribunals to order corrective action and levy fines of up to $15 million.

Jayme Albert, a spokesman for the agency, said last week the bureau has yet to finish the inquiry or decide whether to take enforcement action.

“There is no conclusion of wrongdoing at this time,” he said.

Such practices upset the careful balance that Congress sought between product innovation and access

In the U.S., however, the Trump administration has already acted against what it calls “gaming” of the system to curtail generic competition, announcing in May that it would post details of such incidents on a sort of Internet wall of shame. It currently lists over 50 drugs that generic firms say were kept from them at least temporarily.

“Such practices upset the careful balance that Congress sought between product innovation and access,” Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement earlier this month.

In Canada, the generic industry has pressed Health Canada to bring in regulations that would oblige companies to supply the drugs.

The department is aware of the generics’ “ongoing challenges,” is actively investigating the situation and will take whatever follow-up measures may be necessary, said Geoffroy Legault-Thivierge, a Health Canada spokesman.

Photo by J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

News of the investigations is coming to light after the branded industry scored a win on a different front recently, with Canada agreeing in the new USMCA trade deal to extend the patent protection for a leading class of medicines by two years. The generic sector, whose copies of those “biologic” drugs would be kept off the market longer by the measure, had lobbied against it.