TORONTO — A new report says the amount of money Canadians spent on prescription drugs last year rose a mere 0.9 per cent, the lowest increase since statistics on drug spending were first measured in 1975.
But a health economist at the University of British Columbia warns that several years of slowing growth in drug costs has probably run its course and cost increases will pick up again soon.
Michael Law says that consumers, governments and private drug plans have had a break in the past few years as a number of former blockbuster drugs came off patent protection.
Big savings resulted when drugs such as cholesterol lowering statins, anti-depressants called selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors, and heart drugs known as ACE-inhibitors could be produced by generic drug companies.
But Law says new, expensive drugs that have been coming on the market are already driving increases in drug spending.
Law was commenting on a report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, which releases an analysis of drug spending in Canada annually.
The new drugs Law is taking about are things like hepatitis C drugs that can cost $80,000 or more per person and costly rheumatoid arthritis drugs called anti-TFN drugs.
"The things that have been introduced recently have been very, very expensive and there's a lot that are carrying figure prices of $10,000, $20,000, $40,000, $100,000, $500,000," says Law.
"So I think we're actually at a bit of an inflection point here."
He notes that drug spending in the United States — where these drugs reached the market sooner than they did in Canada — went up by 13 per cent last year.
"And I would be very surprised if we didn't start to see some of that start to creep in this year in Canada."
