Drug spending continues to rise: OECD

From the London (Ont.) Free Press:
Spending on prescription and non-prescription drugs continues to rise in Canada, making us the second-highest per-capita drug spender among western nations.

But the pharmaceutical industry says it’s money well used because effective new drugs can reduce costs in other parts of the health-care system.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development figures show Canada’s pharmaceutical spending averaged $691 US per person in 2007, up from $644 the previous year. In 1960, the first year for which the OECD compiled data, Canadians spent just $16 apiece on pharmaceuticals.

The top spender in 2007 was the United States, at $878 per capita.

Canadian drug spending also rose slightly as a slice of overall health spending, to 17.7% of the total. It’s been inching up since the early ’60s, when it was 12.9%. The figure includes medical “non-durables” such as bandages and vitamins, not just prescription drugs. ...more

Cardiovascular medication costs jumped 200%

From CTV News:
The use of cardiovascular drugs has increased so dramatically in Canada that costs associated with the medications have jumped 200 per cent in a decade, new research suggests.

The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, put the total cost of cardiovascular drugs in 2006 at more than $5 billion. Statins, which lower cholesterol, accounted for nearly 40 per cent of those costs.

According to the researchers, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of premature death and disability in Canada, and cardiovascular drugs are the most commonly prescribed medications.

If the pace continues, the researchers warned, costs could spiral to $10.6 billion by 2020 and could threaten the viability of government-funded drug insurance programs.

"This rapid escalation in costs for cardiovascular drugs threatens the sustainability of public drug insurance programs," the authors wrote. "Increases of this magnitude over such a relatively short period deserve further scrutiny." ...more

Drug costs smother health care in Quebec

From the Montreal Gazette:
Quebec spends far more on prescription drugs than any other province or territory in Canada – a factor that’s to blame for spiralling health-care costs, a new study reveals.

More disturbing, Quebec has gone from spending the least of any province on medications in 1985 – as a percentage of its total health-care expenditures – to the most last year, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

“This surprises me a lot, because Quebec had stayed within the Canadian average until 2005-2006,” said André Côté, a drug-policy expert at Université Laval.

“The spending is very high and hasn’t stopped going up.”

The study found that Quebec spent almost $963 per capita on medications last year, an increase of 8.1 per cent since 2007. By comparison, Ontario spent $924 per capita last year, up by 5.9 per cent.

The Canadian average was $897 per person. ...more

Canadians spend almost $30 billion a year on medications, study finds

From the Canadian Press:
Canadians are forking out close to $30 billion a year to stock their medicine cabinets with prescription and over-the-counter medications, says an annual report on drug spending released Thursday.

That works out to an average of almost $900 per person across the country, concluded the Canadian Institute for Health Information report on estimated 2008 drug costs outside hospitals.

The report shows last year's drug expenditures accounted for 17.4 per cent of total health costs - nearly double the proportion that drug spending claimed in 1985 when the institute began compiling and publishing such data.

"Typically, and this has been a pattern really for the last 10 years, drugs are certainly the fastest-growing component of health expenditure," said Michael Hunt, CIHI manager of pharmaceutical programs.

Drug spending grew by an estimated eight per cent in 2008 over the previous year, outstripping the six per cent rate of growth in what is paid out for hospitals and doctors.

"So it's really not in line with what we see for physician spending, hospital spending and actually the overall increase in health expenditure," Hunt said from Ottawa. ...more

Generic drug prices inflated, committee reports

From the Vancouver Sun:
Inflated prices on generic prescription drugs mean B.C.'s Pharmacare program and drug consumers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars more for medications than they should be each year, says former auditor-general George Morfitt, a member of a committee asked by the provincial government to identify drug funding and approval reforms.

Recommendations of The Report of the Pharmaceutical Task Force were made public Wednesday.

"Canadian prices [on non-brand name, off-patent drugs] are about 40 per cent too high compared [with] other countries," Morfitt said in an interview, referring to the fact that pharmacies receive a 30- to 40-per-cent rebate on bulk purchases of drugs from manufacturers.

However, they don't bother passing on those savings to consumers and Pharmacare.

"Pharmacare is paying artificially high prices," Morfitt said after the

Health Minister George Abbott said the government accepts all the recommendations of the task force and agrees that while British Columbians spend more than $1 billion annually on pharmaceutical products, there are clearly cost savings which have yet to be attained. ...more

Drug spending rose to $27b last year on backs of new market entries

From the Canadian Press:
Spending on prescribed and over-the-counter drugs in Canada outpaced overall health spending last year, and grew faster than the rate of inflation, new figures show.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information reported Thursday that drug spending reached an estimated $27 billion in 2007. That's up 7.2 per cent from the $25 billion spent the previous year.

In comparison, total health spending last year rose 6.6 per cent, to $160 billion from $150 billion in 2006. Inflation hovered around two per cent.

The institute cites increased volume of drug use and the entry of new drugs into the market, which are typically introduced at higher prices, as reasons for the soaring drug costs.

However, the rate of growth for drug spending has slowed from an average annual rate of 9.5 per cent between 1985 and 2005. ...more

Strange Prescription

From Monday Magazine (BC):
The nine members of the provincial government’s new pharmaceutical task force include the head of Canada’s largest drug lobby group, but nobody to represent the interests of patients or the public.

“It’s a good idea to do this, but the compostion of the board is highly debateable,” says Adrian Dix, the NDP health critic. “I think it’s extraordinary and bizarre the pharmaceutical representatives were put on the panel this way. It’s really unfortunate patients are so poorly represented here.”

The highest profile drug industry representative on the task force is Russell Williams, the president of Canada’s Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D), a national lobby group with members from some 50 drug companies and whose directors include the presidents, CEOs and other top officials from 14 of the countries biggest drug manufacturers. ...more

Doctors could use more info on drug costs: study

I have to concur with this article. Generally, physicians are somewhat unaware of the price of medications. I just had an example of this in my practice where a physician was incorrect in their price estimate of a drug by thousands of dollars per month of treatment. Perhaps a pharmacist working collaboratively with a physician could help these types of situations. Ultimately, costs could be contained and patient outcomes could be improved.

From CTV News:
Soaring drug bills in Canada could be cut if doctors simply paid attention to the cost of the medications they prescribe, says a new federal report.

The study, commissioned by Industry Canada, found that Canadian physicians are generally oblivious to drug prices and often prescribe an expensive pharmaceutical when a cheap one would do.

"In Canada, there is no formal mechanism that credibly brings cost into the physician's decision-making process'' when issuing prescriptions, says the report by IMS Health Consulting Inc. ...more