Reporting on the Total Annual Expenditures on Travel, Hospitality and Conferences for the Fiscal Year 2014-2015

Department/Agency: Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
Report on Annual Expenditures for Travel, Hospitality and Conferences

As required by the Treasury Board Directive on Travel, Hospitality, Conference and Event Expenditures, this report provides information on the annual expenditures for each of travel, hospitality and conference fees for the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2015. It also provides the variance explanations from the previous fiscal year in each of these areas.

This information is updated annually and does not contain information withheld under the Access to Information Act or the Privacy Act.

Expenditures on travel, hospitality and conference fees incurred by federal departments and agencies are related to activities that support a departmental or agency mandate and the government's priorities.

In particular, the PMPRB is an independent, quasi-judicial body created by Parliament in 1987 under the Patent Act (Act). Its mandate is two-fold:

• Regulatory – to ensure that prices charged by patentees for patented medicines sold in Canada are not excessive; and
• Reporting – to report on pharmaceutical trends of all medicines and on research and development spending by pharmaceutical patentees.

In carrying out its mandate, the PMPRB endeavours to ensure that Canadians are protected from excessive prices for patented medicines sold in Canada, and stakeholders are informed on pharmaceutical trends.

Significant Variances Compared With the Previous Fiscal Year

Travel: Compared with fiscal year 2013-14, the decrease in travel expenditures by public servants and non-public servants is primarily due to continued efforts to ensure travel expenditures are managed in the most effective and economical manner.

Hospitality: Compared to fiscal year 2013-2014, the increase in hospitality expenditures is mainly due to an increase in the number of organized events to support the core mandate of the PMPRB and the Town Hall meeting held with staff in October 2014.

Conference fees: Compared to fiscal year 2013-14, the increase in conference fees is mainly due to increased stakeholder interest in the reports produced by the PMPRB under the National Prescription Drug Utilization Information System (NPDUIS) initiative. An effort has been made to produce reports that are more timely, relevant and topical to payers and policymakers, which has resulted in an unprecedented number of requests this year from the stakeholder community for NPDUIS representatives to attend various conferences and seminars in order to present their research findings. Although this resulted in an increase in conference fees, the PMPRB continues to use web-based applications to present its NPDUIS reports to the greatest extent possible, in order to minimize expenditures on both conference fees and travel.