“Breakthrough” drugs and growth in expenditure on prescription drugs in Canada

Abstract

Driven by increased use of prescription drugs and by shifts from old to new products, spending on drugs in Canada doubled between 1996 and 2003. 1 Which drugs drove this expenditure growth? The Canadian Patented Medicine Prices Review Board appraises the therapeutic novelty of every patented medicine in Canada to distinguish "breakthrough" drugs from other medicines. Since 1990, the board has published these appraisals in annual reports. 2 We applied the board's classifications for breakthrough drugs to total expenditures on and use of prescription drugs in the province of British Columbia (population 4.2 million).