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Canada's First Prescription Drug Atlas Maps Billions in Spending

Posted on: Wednesday, 14 December 2005, 21:00 CST

By AMY CARMICHAEL

VANCOUVER (CP) - Canada's $20-billion drug spending has been mapped in an atlas that shows which provinces pop lots of pills and which provinces buy the most expensive new drugs.

The Canadian Rx Atlas uses prescription data provided by IMS Health Canada, an international health industry information company, from 2,100 retail pharmacies to break down trends in drug spending between 1998 and 2004. It provides details regional variations in spending.

According to the atlas, Quebecers and New Brunswickers will spend about 50 per cent more on drugs than people in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

"That's partly explained by some differences in demographics," lead researcher Steve Morgan said Wednesday.

"We have younger populations in B.C. and Saskatchewan."

But Morgan said demographics doesn't explain the entire 50 per cent variation in drug costs among provinces.

"There may be some differences in health needs, which in and of itself is an interesting research question that needs to be addressed.

"On the whole what I think it represents is just differences in patterns of drug use, patterns of care across Canada," he said.

Canadians all pay basically the same price for drugs, he said. However, patients in Ontario and Quebec tend to use newer, more costly medicines.

"Imagine treating hypertension with newer classes of medications can be as much as 100 times more expensive," he said.

And not necessarily any better. Morgan said about 90 per cent of drugs released in Canada are considered "me too" drugs, which do basically the same thing as older, cheaper remedies. Only 10 per cent are "breakthrough" drugs with dramatically better effects.

The biggest drug cost drivers are medications for cholesterol and cardiovascular conditions, accounting for about 40 per cent of total prescription drug spending in Canada, Morgan said.

The atlas confirmed what many studies have shown over the past five years: drug spending is going up across the country.

"The No. 1 finding certainly has been the fact that drug spending is increasing in double digit rates every year in Canada and it's true of all provinces," Morgan said.

"It's been a fascinating finding we've been following truthfully since the late '90s. It's an era of rapid expenditure inflation."

He is challenging the federal and provincial governments to invest the equivalent of one per cent of Canada's annual drug expenditure in systems to monitor utilization, expenditure and related health benefits and risks.

Source: Canadian Press

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