The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Federal Minister of Health, yesterday tabled the 2020 Annual Report of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) with the Clerks of the House of Commons and the Senate.
The 2020 Annual Report outlines the continuing rise in the sales of high-cost medicines in Canada. Sales of patented medicines grew to over $17.5 billion in 2020. High-cost medicines remain the primary cost driver for Canadian public and private drug plans. The number of patented medicines in Canada with an annual average treatment cost of at least $10,000 more than quadrupled between 2006 and 2020, while the number of medicines with costs over $50,000 rose from 4 to 58 over the same period.
The report also sets out other detailed information on the PMPRB's regulatory activities; patentees' compliance with the Board's pricing guidelines; sales and price trends of patented medicines sold in Canada, including international price comparisons, trends in all medicine expenditures, and spending on pharmaceutical research and development.
The PMPRB is an independent quasi-judicial body that protects the interests of Canadian consumers by ensuring the prices of patented medicines sold in Canada are not excessive, and provides stakeholders with price, cost, and utilization information to help them make timely and knowledgeable medicine pricing, purchasing, and reimbursement decisions.
