Cost of medicines covered by employee benefit plans in Canada “will be sustainable”

One of the most rigorous and detailed forecasts ever conducted for the Canadian private drug plan market shows that drug cost growth within private plans will be in the low single digit range in the coming five-year period.

This news is important for Canadian employers who offer drug coverage to their employees as part of their health benefit plans. These results show that, at a market level, the private drug plan system growth will be sustainable, says the Canada’s trade group Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D)

Rx&D commissioned IMS Brogan, the Canadian business unit of IMS Health, to conduct a forecast of private drug plan drug costs for 2013-2017. The IMS Brogan Private Drug Plan Drug Forecast shows that the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of private market drug costs, at an overall market level, will be in the range of 1.6% to 2.8 % over the five-year forecast period.