Growth in Canadian drug spending lowest in 15 years

While drug spending continues to increase in Canada, overall annual growth has slowed to its lowest rate in 15 years, according to a new report released today by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

Total drug expenditure is estimated to have reached C$32.0 billion ($32.62 billion) in 2011, an increase of 4.0% over 2010; this was equal to C$929 per Canadian in 2011. The share of total health dollars spent on drugs is forecast to have been 16% in 2011 - the same percentage that was spent on drugs 10 years ago.

“In the late 1990s and early 2000s, we saw double-digit increases in prescribed drug spending,” says Michael Hunt, CIHI’s director of Pharmaceuticals and Health Workforce Information Services. “Spending is slowing down, which may reflect recent patent expirations of blockbuster brand name drugs used to treat common ailments like high cholesterol and hypertension. We’ve also seen the implementation of generic pricing policies by provincial drug programs,” he notes. The latter half of the past decade also saw slowed growth in the use of cholesterol-lowering and antihypertensive drugs.