Canadian Prescription Records For 2007

This information is based on an article published in ‘Pharmacypractice’, one of the professional journals for Canadian pharmacists. This information was obtained from IMS Health Canada database.

This year the total number of prescriptions dispensed in Canadian retail pharmacies is increased by 8.2%, compared to 5.7% in 2006. Canadians spent $20.7 billion on prescription medications in their retail pharmacies (including dispensing fees) on the 448 million scripts they filled from October 2006 to September 2007.

Generic prescriptions (47.2% of all prescriptions filled) grew by 15.6% where as the growth rate for brand scripts was recorded as only 2.3%. Each Canadian filled an average of 14 prescriptions during this one-year period, at an average retail price of $46.16 per script.

For the fourth straight year, cholesterol reducer ‘Lipitor’ was Canada’s most dispensed drug, with 12.8 million prescriptions. The second fastest growing top 10 product is again proton pump inhibitor ‘Pantoloc’. Cholesterol reducers continue to be the fastest growing among Canada’s most dispensed classes, followed closely by medications for neurological disorders and gastrointestinal/genitourinary agents.

Generic manufacturers account for slightly more than half of the Top 200 products: Apotex manufactured 46 products, followed by Novopharm with 16, Pharmascience with 13, and Genpharm and ratiopharm with 9 and 8 respectively.

What do you think? Growth in prescription number is good sign or bad?