The United States is keeping Canada and its plans to overhaul its drug-pricing system on a ``watch list'' of countries deemed a peril to American intellectual property rights.
In its annual report on foreign threats to U-S copyright holders, the office of the U-S Trade Representative raises concerns about Canada's plan to change how it calculates the fair price of prescription drugs.
The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board plans to stop using the U-S and Switzerland -- home to the world's highest drug prices -- to help it determine what Canadian patients should pay.
The report acknowledges that Canada has agreed to intellectual-property reforms in the U-S-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which the U-S-T-R announced last week will become the law of the land on July 1st.
The report comes just as a world racked by COVID-19 takes an interest in accessing a California company's experimental new drug treatment.