C o m m u n i q u é
OTTAWA, October 6, 2004: The Minister of Health, the Honourable Ujjal Dosanjh, tabled the 2003 Annual Report of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board in Parliament yesterday.
In 2003, total sales of all drugs for human use by manufacturers in Canada increased 14.5% from 2002 to $15.0 billion, while sales of patented drugs increased by 14.8% to $10.1 billion. Patented drugs accounted for 67.4% of total drug sales, unchanged from the previous year.
Dr. Robert G. Elgie, Chairperson of the PMPRB, observed that in 2003, the prices of existing patented drugs, subject to the PMPRB´s Guidelines, fell by 1.1% from 2002. He added that Canadian prices were about 5% lower than the median of foreign prices in the seven countries used for price comparison purposes. With the exception of 2002, Canadian prices, on average, have been 5% to 12% below median foreign prices since 1995.
A total of 70 new patented drug products for human use were reported to the PMPRB in 2003, including 18 New Active Substances. However, as of tabling of this report, there were a total of 71 new patented drug products reported for 2003. The prices of 70 of the 71 drugs had been reviewed, 58 had been found to be within the Guidelines while 12 were under investigation. The PMPRB contributes to Canadian health care by ensuring that prices of patented medicines are not excessive and by analyzing and reporting to Canadians on price trends of all medicines and on research and development conducted by patentees. The PMPRB reports to Canadians through its annual Report.
Pursuant to its transparency initiative, the PMPRB publishes summary reports on its reviews of New Active Substances on its website, under Patented Medicines, and in its quarterly publication, the NEWSletter.
Several enforcement activities were reported which resulted in Voluntary Compliance Undertakings (VCUs) by patentees, ensuring that prices of patented medicines are within the Guidelines. In addition to VCUs approved for Remicade, Aromasin and Dostinex, the Board approved VCUs for One-Alpha and Fasturtec.
As for R&D, patentees reported total expenditures of $1.19 billion in 2003, a decrease of 0.5% over the $1.2 billion in the previous year. The R&D-to-sales ratio for all patentees declined to 8.8% in 2003 from 9.9% in 2002 as did the R&D-to-sales ratio for members of Rx&D to 9.1% from 10.0% the previous year. Expenditures on basic research fell by 9.3% in 2003 relative to 2002, totaling $180 million in 2003 and representing 15.7% of current R&D expenditures.
The PMPRB contributes to Canadian health care by ensuring that prices of patented medicines are not excessive and by analyzing and reporting to Canadians on price trends of all medicines and on research and development conducted by patentees. The PMPRB reports to Canadians through its Annual Report.
The 2003 Annual Report is available on the PMPRB website.
References: Sylvie Dupont
Toll-free : 1 877-861-2350;
Tel.: (613) 954-8299; Fax : (613) 952-7626
E-mail : sdupont@pmprb-cepmb.gc.ca
