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Canada Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare Report Q1 2007Published by: Business Monitor International Published: Jan. 1, 2007 - 62 Pages Table of Contents
AbstractThe Canadian pharmaceutical market is one of the most developed in the world and was worth US$16.4bn in 2006. However, as BMI examines in its newly-released Q107 Canada Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare Report, the market is facing a number of challenges ahead, with Ontario introducing a central medicines formulary, in what could be a precursor for a nationwide system. Meanwhile, the victory of the Democratic party in the US congressional elections in November 2006 could increase parallel exports into the US, potentially threatening medicine supplies in Canada Ontario’s central formulary has now come into force, which should have both negative and positive impacts on the drug market. A central system should reduce waste, so volume sales can be expected to fall. However, a number of expensive branded drugs have been added to the medicines list, including UKbased GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)’s Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Swiss company Novartis' Gleevec (imatinib), although this has been somewhat offset by the introduction of a number of generic medicines. Meanwhile, the Ontario Pharmacist’s Association (OPA) has reacted strongly to the decision by the US congress to liberalise the import of medicines from Canada. The group claims that the parallel trade could end up causing drug shortages in Canada as the major multinationals - fearful of undercutting their own products in the US - reduce their supplies to the country. The OPA has called upon the Canadian government to ban prescription drug sales to US patients.Expenditure on healthcare in Canada is expected to reach CAD$148bn (US$130bn) in 2006, an increase of CAD$8bn (US$7bn) over last year, but lower than the average increases of the previous six years, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). Hospitals are responsible for the majority of spending, accounting for 29.8% of total health expenditure. Pharmaceuticals - both prescribed and over-the-counter (OTC) - take the second largest share (17%), while physicians are the third-largest cost (13.1%). The increase in expenditure should be positive news for the implementation of the perennially delayed National Pharmaceutical Strategy (NPS). Conceived in 2004, the NPS is fundamentally important to the health of the country and primarily seeks to provide universal access to prescription drugs, without bankrupting federal and provincial funds. It aims to achieve this by drafting a national formulary, implementing a pricing and purchasing strategy to obtain the best prices for drugs and vaccines, adopting e-prescribing to reduce medical errors and by improving the prescribing behaviour of health professionals to increase the uptake of generic medicines. Get Full Details About This Report >> |
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