Whether you are trying to explain the impacts of your disease to your healthcare team, fill your prescription, get a new treatment option covered by insurance, explain to your family or friends what it’s like living with psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, or get supports in the workplace, we are here for you.

Patients’ experiences and perspectives should be shared with - and heard by - the people who make decisions affecting their lives. CAPP actively works with governments, private plans, healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, and researchers to better understand the challenges and barriers that psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis patients face.

Advocating on behalf of people impacted by psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis in Canada is one of CAPP’s strategic priorities. Learn more about how we do this.

Drug shortages

If you have had trouble getting your prescription filled or renewed because the pharmacy cannot get in more of the drug, please let us know. CAPP shares this information with the federal drug shortages program and encourages them to take action to address the shortage.

Patient input submissions

When a new drug for psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis comes to patients in Canada, it must be reviewed in the context of other drugs available for these diseases if the manufacturer wants it to be listed on a public drug formulary. The Quebec government has its own health technology assessment (HTA), done by the Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESSS). All other government drug plans in Canada refer to the HTA done by the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH).

As part of these processes, patients are invited to share their experiences living with the disease, how helpful they find existing treatments, their treatment goals, and their experience with the new drug (if they have tried it) or their expectations of it (if they have not). Some provinces (BC, Ontario) have their own HTA processes. CAPP has provided patient input submissions for many new drugs :

Psoriasis

• Bimekizumab for treating plaque psoriasis - French only (INESSS, September 2021
• Bimekizumab for treating moderate to severe plaque psoriasis (CADTH, September 2021)
• Ilumya (tildrakizumab) for treatment of plaque psoriasis (INESSS, February 2021)
• Duobrii (halobetasol propionate and tazarotene) for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis (INESSS, April 2020)
• Cimzia (certolizumab pegol) for treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis (INESSS, March 2020)
• Duobrii (halobetasol propionate and tazarotene) for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis (CADTH, February 2020)

Psoriatic arthritis

• Rinvoq (upadacitinib) for psoriatic arthritis (INESSS, February 2021
• Rinvoq (upadacitinib) for psoriatic arthritis (CADTH, January 2021)

Biosimilars 

CAPP supports efforts to help health systems across Canada save money and improve patients’ access to new therapies for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. Biosimilars can reduce costs to patients and the health system but policies designed to increase their use risk-reducing treatment options for our patients. The goal of any biosimilar policy must be to improve health outcomes and quality of life, as defined by patients. CAPP urges drug plans to respect shared decision-making between a patient and their physician as they explore these policy options.

In 2021, the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) conducted a review of how biologics for plaque psoriasis are used by government drug plans. CAPP provided feedback on the proposed project scope in September 2021, in which we highlighted that:

1. The decision to take or change a biologic is often difficult and emotional

2. It is important that people living with psoriasis have access to multiple - and new - treatment options because they often have to adjust their treatment plan throughout their lives

3. People across Canada do not always have the same treatment options even though drugs are approved at a national level

4. Older people, young people (e.g., children), and women who may get pregnant have special considerations that should be reflected in any advice to government drug plans.

Read our letter to CADTH here (English)

Read our full Biosimilars Position Statement

Rare disease drug strategy

CAPP contributed to the submission from the Best Medicines Coalition as part of the federal government’s consultation on a new rare disease drug strategy in January - March 2021.

Best Medicines Coalition submission 

Federal pre-budget submissions

In 2021, CAPP collaborated with the Canadian Psoriasis Network to submit our recommendations to the federal government before it made its Budget 2021 decisions.

CAPP-CPN Federal Pre-Budget Submission 2021

If you need help, reach out to us.