Canada and the USA Online Pharmacy – why do prices differ so much?

More than 1million of Americans buy medicaments in Canada. Some of us will ask a question: Why are the prices of this country much lower than in the USA? The reason is - government control of prices. The prices grow in the countries where this control is absent.

Supporters of American approach every time declare that it is inadmissible to dictate pricing policy to pharmaceutical giants. They are sure that it goes against principles of commercial marketplace. They say the government in Canada acts just this way.

But it is not so, however. During 15 years of the existence of Canadian system of drug prices control - government instance Patented Medicine Prices Review Board strictly demanded from producers to put prices down only 4 times. As a whole, local drug producers scotch inflation themselves, accepting the rules of the game.

It means that in reality there is no pressure from the official Ottawa, pharmacists understand that prices should not grow higher than certain level. Patented Medicine Prices Review Board experts twice a year check how prices for medicaments are fixed. For all that if period of validity of license for already promoted popular meds as well as for new drugs (they are35% of the whole market) has expired – then state control is not applied to these medicaments.

Fixing reasonable prices, the producers take into account the following factors:

• price for new drugs should not exceed maximum value of medicaments, already existed on the market and used to treat this or that disease;
• if a new drug does not have similar one and it is beyond comparison on Canadian market, its price should not be higher than analogous medicines on the market of seven countries, six European - Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and also the USA;
• price growth should not exceed inflation growth;

Canadian pharmacist hardly break gentleman’s agreement with the government as they understand that if it seizes their hands – they will have to pay a significant fine.

Price fixation politics concerning medicaments has led to the fact that cost of Canadian drugs (regulated by the government) which at the latest 80s of the past century yielded only to the USA – became lower than drug prices in other industrial developed countries (except the USA): in 1987 it was 23% higher, and finally today it is 5-10% lower!

But prices for Canadian drugs not regulated by the state control are higher to 20-40% than their west-european analogues. Comparing to the USA, the cost of Canadian medicines sold under state control is lower to 69% than their so-called American “counterparts”. So why should we be amazed by their great popularity in other countries?

One more very important feature of the Canadian system of drugs supplying is the equality in access: prices are the same for all customers. We know the situation in America – uninsured United States people pay much more for the medicaments than those who have insurance policy. That is because they do not have management of insurance companies behind their back, companies that are able to obtain significant discounts for their clients.