The current Global ADHD Market Worth $2.7Bn and is Expected to Reach $3.4Bn by 2015
This is from a new report from Research and Markets on the Global ADHD market, and if you have $12,198 Euros, you can buy it.
Innovation is key – manufacturers can no longer expect significant returns on standard extended release formulations. The current pipeline offers drugs with novel delivery mechanisms; improved durations of action and anti-abuse profiles, which will help differentiate these pipeline drugs from the current established ADHD therapies.
So we’re a source of a lot of revenue. Hopefully health Canada will pay for this report as well as provincial health ministries and other health organizations.
Here’s my rational. Yesterday I heard Dr. James Swanson, author of a popular ADHD diagnostic tool SNAP, talk about how a few years ago there were about 5 million prescriptions in the US for short term stimulants ( i.e., Ritalin, Dexedrine that last 2-3 hours) and last year there were 1 million written, since most doctors are switching to longer acting stimulants like Concerta, Adderall XR, Dexedrine Spansules, and Strattera a non stimulant adhd medication. They have a longer effect, kids don’t get embarrassed by taking meds at school, less rebound effect etc
The previous day I head in the CADDAC meeting that Concerta was approved for the section 8 drug plan in Ontario but that the ministry of health required the patients to do a trial of short term Ritalin first then a trial of short term Dexedrine 2nd and only if they didn’t work then the were allowed to apply for Concerta.
At least they’re approved. In BC it’s not on the provincial drug plan, pharmacare and in most other provinces it’s not and neither is Strattera.
So while the US market is switching to long term stimulants, the backwards Canadian provincial governments are still living in the past. They’re giving us the least desired meds first and often preventing those who need the meds the most and can least afford it from getting it. Maybe if they read the report or had their ministry bureaucrats come to ADHD conferences like these they’d change their minds.
Hopefully some people from this conference will be writing to their respective provinical health ministries to change this. I’ll be posting a contact list for them to do so on this blog hopefully in the next day or so.