30 Days of PH: Advocacy
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Doctors Urge Early Diagnosis to Save Lives in PH, Other Rare Diseases
A group of Canadian doctors highlighted the importance of an early diagnosis among those with rare diseases. The recommendation, released by the Pulmonary Hypertension Association of Canada, came out on Rare Disease Day, an international event every Feb. 28 to raise awareness of the 300 million people with rare…
Toronto Partnership to Create Fast Diagnostic Tools to Assess Donated Lungs for Transplant
Plans to create and license diagnostic tools to help transplant surgeons rapidly and accurately assess the health of a lung before it is transplanted are the basis of two research and development agreements between SQI Diagnostics and Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN), in Canada. There is a significant gap between the…
Uptravi, PAH Treatment, Now Publicly Funded in 9 of 10 Canadian Provinces
Uptravi (selexipag) is now available with public funding for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) patients in Canada living in nine of the country’s 1o provinces, patient groups announced. The governments of British Columbia and Nova Scotia recently added Uptravi to their publicly funded medicines — likely making Actelion’s PAH…
Canada Expands Public Health Coverage for PAH Therapy Uptravi
Five Canadian provinces, Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland and Labrador, have approved public health insurance coverage for Uptravi (selexipag), a pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) therapy developed by Actelion. Quebec was the first province to approve public funding for Uptravi in Canada, in March 2018. The…
Canada’s Health Regulators Urged to Make PAH Therapies Accessible Through Public Funding
More than 2,000 letters urge Canadian health authorities to make all pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) therapies available through public funding so that new life-extending medications are accessible to all who need them. The letters were signed by PAH patients, their caregivers, family members, and friends and will be delivered to…
New Surgery Simulator May Improve Lives of Canadians with Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension
The new pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) surgery simulator — a 3D device developed by the National Research Council of Canada with support from Bayer — could potentially improve the lives of thousands of Canadians with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). The first-of-its-kind simulator will allow surgeons to train more efficiently for surgery to treat CTEPH, a…
How Pulmonary Hypertension Changed My Life Plan
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” That is a question most are asked when they are a child. As you reach young adulthood the phrase changes. “What do you plan to study?” “What do you want to do with your degree?” Where do you…
PH Patients in Canada Urged to Sign Petition for Public Funding of Newer Treatments
Serena Lawrence, a young Canadian living with pulmonary hypertension (PH), has launched an online petition to raise public consciousness of, and draw government attention to, PH in Canada. Upon receiving her diagnosis of Stage 3-4 PH in 2013 at age 25, just three months after first showing her…
Ontario PAH Patients Rally to Demand Public Funding of Drug Opsumit
Residents of the Canadian province of Ontario affected by pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) gathered at the Queen’s Park provincial legislature in Toronto this week in hope of convincing Ontario’s Health Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins to make the drug Opsumit (macitentan) publicly accessible as a treatment option for Ontario…
PHA Canada Raises Concerns with Limited Access to Opsumit
Canadian patients who suffer from pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) are raising concerns about the risk of heart failure and death associated with the disease due to a new recommendation from the Common Drug Review (CDR) to limit the access of Opsumit (macitentan) to newly diagnosed patients. The alert…
