Our generic drug prices are high
Would you pay $60 for a large coffee at Tim Mortons? How about $500,000 for a Toyota Corolla? You probably wouldn't, but consider this: compared to other countries, this is how inflated Canadian prices are for some generic prescription drugs.
That our generic drug prices are high is no great secret, and recently nearly every provincial government has taken steps to lower prices. However, instead of leveraging competition to get lower pricing, thus far our governments have stuck to their old — and arbitrary — formula of paying a percentage of the equivalent brand name price. Ontario has gone the furthest and reduced prices to 25 per cent of the equivalent brand name drug.
This week the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at the University of British Columbia published a paper where I demonstrate that Ontario pays nearly a quarter of a billion dollars more every year for the top 100 generic drugs compared to prices in other countries. Since Ontario has the lowest prices in Canada, this means every other province is overpaying.
EXAMPLE.
SIMVASTATIN-CARDOVASCULAR DRUG
The amount we're overpaying varies by drug. For some drugs, the difference is : while (Ontario pays 62.5 cents for one 20mg tablet of simvastatin. New Zealand pays 2.4 cents. In fact, the price in New Zealand dropped to 1.8 cents after the research for the paper was completed, while Ontario's stayed the same. That means Ontarians now pay 36 times more than New Zealanders for the same drug: just like the costly coffee, or the half-million dollar compact car.
That our generic drug prices are high is no great secret, and recently nearly every provincial government has taken steps to lower prices. However, instead of leveraging competition to get lower pricing, thus far our governments have stuck to their old — and arbitrary — formula of paying a percentage of the equivalent brand name price. Ontario has gone the furthest and reduced prices to 25 per cent of the equivalent brand name drug.
This week the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at the University of British Columbia published a paper where I demonstrate that Ontario pays nearly a quarter of a billion dollars more every year for the top 100 generic drugs compared to prices in other countries. Since Ontario has the lowest prices in Canada, this means every other province is overpaying.
EXAMPLE.
SIMVASTATIN-CARDOVASCULAR DRUG
The amount we're overpaying varies by drug. For some drugs, the difference is : while (Ontario pays 62.5 cents for one 20mg tablet of simvastatin. New Zealand pays 2.4 cents. In fact, the price in New Zealand dropped to 1.8 cents after the research for the paper was completed, while Ontario's stayed the same. That means Ontarians now pay 36 times more than New Zealanders for the same drug: just like the costly coffee, or the half-million dollar compact car.
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