TORONTO, Jan. 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The catastrophic expense of high cost drugs have been made affordable for a record number of Canadians, their employers, and life and health insurance companies through the industry’s drug cost sharing mechanism. 

The Canadian Drug Insurance Pooling Corporation (CDIPC) announced today that between 2012 and 2018, its 23-member health insurance companies and EP3 cost-sharing framework provided to employers has helped over 45,500 Canadians and their 24,000 employers to afford high cost specialty drugs. This includes over 23,000 Canadians whose treatment required drugs cost in excess of $10,000 per year in 2018.

Growing by 3 to 5 per cent annually, Canadians in need of high cost drugs now represent over 39 per cent of the total drug claims paid being for by CDIPC’s member insurance companies.

 “At a time when national pharmacare is being debated as a way to ensure Canadians have access to high cost drugs, the industry’s drug cost sharing mechanism is very much contributing to maintaining the viability and affordability of drug insurance plans for many Canadian employers.” CDIPC’s Executive Director Dan Berty said.   “This means employees and their family members needing high cost drugs will usually find the drugs covered through their employer’s drug insurance plan. Without the industry’s EP3 cost sharing framework, this would be a much darker picture for many employers and, sadly, their employees.”

Since 2013, through the CDIPC, Canada’s life and health insurers have implemented an approach to shelter employers from the direct impacts of the costs associated with highly expensive and recurring drug treatments required by employees and their families.  This approach shares the costs between employers and insurers.  In so doing, the industry is helping ensure the sustainability of private health insurance plans for Canadians and their employers.

Additional information on 2018 CDIPC drug pooling results has been posted to CDIPCs website in the pooling results data section.

About CDIPC

The Canadian Drug Insurance Pooling Corporation is a not-for-profit corporation created by the supplemental health insurers in Canada to help facilitate affordable drug coverage for all fully-insured supplementary drug plans while maintaining a competitive health insurance market.

For more information, please contact:
Dan Berty, Executive Director
(416) 359-3139/ dberty@cdipc-scmam.ca