Health-care services dominate the list of B.C.’s biggest suppliers of public contracts, with pharmaceutical companies leading the way, according to an IJF analysis.
AstraZeneca is the number 1 supplier to public bodies in B.C. over the last decade, records in the IJF’s procurement database show. The British-Swedish pharma giant has $1.3 billion in deals to supply medications to the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) across just 12 contracts.
Though most British Columbians probably associate AstraZeneca with its COVID-19 vaccines, nearly all of those contracts are for expensive cancer drugs. The company is one of four pharmaceutical manufacturers on the top 10 list, and in each case, the most lucrative contracts are for cancer treatments — all awarded directly, without a public bidding process, thanks to patent protections.
PHSA, which handles drug procurement for B.C.’s health authorities, acknowledged that the cost of these pharmaceuticals can be very high.
“Drug prices are set by the pharmaceutical manufacturer. The price is usually justified based on the high cost for research and development, cost to make the drug, comparative benefit to the patient and other financial considerations,” PHSA told the IJF in an email.
“[The pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance] negotiates with the pharmaceutical manufacturers to achieve greater value for publicly funded drug programs and patients through its combined negotiating power.”
The health authority is also the biggest spender in the database, with $14.3 billion in awards.
The two biggest individual contracts in the database, valued at more than $1.2 billion together, were awarded by B.C. Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) in 2023 for air ambulance transportation. In both cases, public money that had previously been scattered among numerous different operators was now concentrated in the hands of a single company.
The procurement process behind one of those awards, Ascent Helicopters’ $544.4-million deal to provide rotary wing ambulance service, is the subject of both a court challenge and formal complaints from competitors.
The top 10 companies and their subsidiaries have been awarded contracts worth more than $6.4 billion since 2014, an analysis of database records suggests, accounting for a sixth of the $38.5 billion in contracts handed out in that time.
#1: AstraZeneca
Value of awarded contracts: $1.3 billion
Number of awarded contracts: 12
AstraZeneca has scored a dozen multi-million-dollar contracts with PHSA over the last decade, mostly for cancer treatments. Just one of the company’s awards, the cheapest of the 12, is for something else — dapagliflozin, sold under the brand name Forxiga, which is used to treat diabetes.
Like all the other drug contracts included in this list, the deal was the result of a direct award by the province. According to the B.C. Bid website, the open competition portion of the procurement process is skipped when a product can only be provided by one company because of patent protections or copyright and there are no reasonable alternatives.
AstraZeneca has not responded to requests for comment on its lucrative history of supplying drugs to B.C.
#2: Janssen
Value of awarded contracts: $839.2 million
Number of awarded contracts: 7
Janssen, a Belgian pharmaceutical company, has B.C.’s biggest drug contract: a $525.6-million deal inked in 2022 to supply a medicine called daratumumab, also known as Darzalex. The monoclonal antibody medication is used in combination with chemotherapy to treat multiple myeloma.
The award is for a three-year contract with options to renew. The high dollar value for the contract is based on the treatment options that are currently available, but actual spending on the deal could change as newer drugs come online, according to PHSA.
Janssen’s other contracts include some cancer treatments, along with drugs for chronic kidney disease and one antibody medication for a rare condition known as multicentric Castleman’s disease.
Janssen’s parent company, Johnson & Johnson, has not responded to requests for comment.
#3: Carson Air
Value of awarded contracts: $687.3 million
Number of awarded contracts: 4
This Kelowna-based firm, which also runs a flight school and provides cargo services for FedEx, has made a healthy business out of providing BCEHS with air ambulances. All of its awards in the database are for these services.
Carson Air’s 10-year, $673-million contract to provide fixed-wing emergency transportation across the province means that it squeezed out Northern Thunderbird Air and North Cariboo Air, which had previously shared the workload.
Despite the shift from several vendors to just one, PHSA said that it has received no formal complaints from competitors about the procurement process that led to Carson Air being awarded the contract.
When the award was announced in 2023, the company credited its more than 30 years of experience in the industry.
“We attribute our success to experienced, effective and knowledgeable leadership, sound business practices, and a commitment to safety which is grounded in the company’s mission statement and exemplified throughout the organization by leadership at all levels,” Carson Air said.
Last year, there were 6,177 patient transports by plane in B.C., according to an email from PHSA. About three-quarters of all calls for air ambulances use airplanes.
#4: Roche
Value of awarded contracts: $557.3 million
Number of awarded contracts: 37
Like some of the other suppliers on this list, this Swiss multinational holding company has numerous contracts with PHSA for pharmaceutical drugs. However, one of its two major divisions also provide some materials for health-care diagnostics.
Roche’s 10 priciest awards are all for cancer treatments, but it also has contracts for HIV detection systems, PCR equipment to analyze COVID-19 and urinalysis supplies.
Roche Canada said it does not comment on the details of its supply contracts with governments.
“Roche supports and complies with all policies and procedures set forth by the Provincial Health Services Authority and other public entities to ensure that the B.C. government is obtaining the best value for its constituents,” the company said in an email.
“Roche is proud of its long history of supplying patients in British Columbia with innovative medicines and diagnostics that deliver meaningful benefits to patients and the health system.”
#5: Ascent Helicopters
Value of awarded contracts: $551.1 million
Number of awarded contracts: 4
The Vancouver Island-based flight company’s 10-year contract to provide air ambulance service for BCEHS is the second priciest B.C. award in the database. It has also prompted two formal complaints and a lawsuit from an aircraft manufacturer, according to court documents.
European aerospace firm Airbus filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court in November, accusing BCEHS and PHSA of conducting a “procedurally unfair” process by favouring a bid that used a helicopter produced by its competitor Leonardo, based on criteria Airbus claims were undisclosed.
“Airbus is directly affected by the decision, as it lost the opportunity to supply helicopters to provide the services,” the petition reads. It goes on to say that Airbus had to refund an unsuccessful bidder for the contract who’d put down a deposit to purchase its H145 models for the job.
The province has asked the court to dismiss the petition, arguing that Airbus does not have legal standing because it doesn’t supply air ambulance services and did not bid for the job.
In its April 2024 application to strike the petition, PHSA and BCEHS also revealed that two other bidders for the contract have filed complaints, asking for the decision to be reviewed and the contract terminated.
An affidavit filed in the case by Tammy Schiere, BCEHS’s director of aviation fleet operations, describes a lengthy and complicated procurement process that would take years to redo if Ascent’s award is overturned. The affidavit also notes that the two formal complaints are “alleging various procedural and evaluation errors in the RFP,” including bias, conflict of interest and unfairness.
BCEHS’s application to dismiss the petition has yet to be heard in court. An independent advisor has been brought in to help consider the two complaints, according to Schiere.
Former contract holder HeliJet has also registered a lobbyist to speak with provincial officials about procurement processes.
Ascent’s general manager of operations, Sara Andrews, said she couldn’t comment on the company’s contracts because of confidentiality obligations to clients. Ascent is not named as a party in the Airbus lawsuit.
#6: Emil Anderson Construction
Value of awarded contracts: $539.5 million
Number of awarded contracts: 65
The Emil Anderson Group, based in the tiny Fraser Valley community of Rosedale, B.C., encompasses several companies in the world of construction, maintenance, home-building and traffic control. But it’s the group’s work in road and bridge maintenance that has earned it the bulk of its contracts with governments in B.C.
Most of Emil Anderson’s awards in the database, valued at $503 million, are with the B.C. Ministry of Transportation for road work.
In an email to the IJF, the ministry described Emil Anderson as a trusted and reliable contractor, noting that it played a key role in the massive effort to re-open B.C. highways after the devastating floods of 2021.
“Emil Anderson, as a long-standing contractor delivering many important projects for the ministry, has significant experience and expertise that contributes to the company being selected during many ministry procurements,” the ministry said in an unattributed statement.
“It is contractors like Emil Anderson who are instrumental in keeping highways and related infrastructure safe for the travelling public.”
Emil Anderson has also signed about $36 million in contracts with the City of Kelowna for road and construction work, and has had deals with the environment ministry and the City of Nelson as well.
#7: Aramark
Value of awarded contracts: $530.7 million
Number of awarded contracts: 5
Aramark, an American food services company, has lucrative contracts in B.C. health care and with the Crown corporation that operates the province’s casinos and lotteries.
By far the biggest of those was awarded last year by PHSA, valued at $489.6 million over five years to provide food, laundry, housekeeping and inventory management services in health authority facilities across the province. That includes meals for hospital patients and other supplies that PHSA described to the IJF as “critical for effective patient care and operations across the health system.”
A previous nine-year contract valued at $14.1 million for the same services covered Interior Health, Northern Health and Island Health and ended in March 2023.
Aramark also signed an extension of an existing deal with Fraser Health to provide housekeeping services, and records taken from B.C. Bid say it was valued at $15.5 million in 2021. Throughout the entire length of the contract, from 2010 to 2022, Aramark was paid a total of $110.7 million, according to numbers provided by the health authority.
Aramark’s awards also include a five-year contract to provide food services for the B.C. Lottery Corporation in its offices in Kamloops and Vancouver. The total dollar value of that contract is not included in the award data pulled from B.C. Bid, but the corporation’s annual financial statements show it paid $505,703 to Aramark in 2022/2023 and $208,852 the year before.
#8: Bristol Myers Squibb
Value of awarded contracts: $491.3 million
Number of awarded contracts: 4
All four of this U.S. pharmaceutical firm’s contracts in the database are for the same drug combination: nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy). The two drugs are used in combination as an immunotherapy for a range of cancers, including late-stage melanoma, renal cell carcinoma, mesothelioma and lung cancer.
The company told the IJF that the terms of its contracts with the province are confidential and declined to comment further.
#9: SN Transport
Value of awarded contracts: $483 million
Number of awarded contracts: 1
SN Transport is the final company to make the list for its contract to transfer medical patients. In this case, a single contract awarded in December 2023 made it the supplier of non-emergency transportation services for medically stable patients who need to be moved between hospitals and clinics.
The Abbotsford company has been the company of choice for the role since 2009, according to PHSA, and it has now signed three successive contracts to provide transfer services. The current one is for eight years, with options to renew.
SN Transport’s CEO, Colin Davis, told the IJF that the purpose of these contracts is to free up the province’s ambulances for emergencies.
“With specialist services such as renal dialysis, cancer treatment, radiology etc. not being available at all hospitals and all medical facilities, there is an increasing demand to take patients to [and] from these facilities for their treatment and for discharging them after treatment has been completed, to either long-term care facilities or to their homes,” Davis wrote in an email.
#10: Microsoft
Value of awarded contracts: $477.1 million
Number of awarded contracts: 23
Microsoft’s B.C. contracts range across several public agencies, but the biggest is a $397-million, five-year deal with PHSA for enterprise agreements across all of the province’s health authorities.
Another 14 contracts worth $76 million relate to two agreements with BC Hydro to provide access to software tools including Microsoft Office, Teams, Sharepoint, server and cloud enrolment and tech support services, according to BC Hydro spokesperson Saudamini Raina. As of March 2023, $28 million has been spent on those agreements, numbers provided by the utility show.
WorkSafeBC, the province’s workers’ compensation insurer, also awarded Microsoft a $46,631 contract in 2020 for client relationship management software. In the end, the contract only cost $34,833.79, WorkSafeBC said.
“We have long standing relationships with a number of government organizations across Canada. Together, we help provide a broad range of services to all Canadians, ranging from 311 help lines to health services to supporting businesses to fighting wildfires,” Microsoft told the IJF in an unattributed statement.
A note on methodology:
The IJF’s procurement database pulls its information directly from the province’s online B.C. Bid marketplace for public sector contract opportunities. The buyers include provincial ministries, municipalities, regional districts and other public agencies.
To complete this analysis, the IJF has discarded two contracts from the database that were confirmed to be accidental duplicates in B.C. Bid.
The information in the database is subject to caveats. Award values may differ from the amount the public bodies will spend after a contract has been awarded. B.C. Bid is required to include all provincial solicitations valued above $10,000 for goods, $75,000 for services and $100,000 for construction.
When contracts are awarded to a joint venture, they are grouped with the first company named in that joint venture. The figures in this list do not include recent spending on contracts awarded before 2014.
With files from Zak Vescera and Anusha Siddiqui