OBJECTIVES: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic autoimmune disease, affects approximately 1% of adults in developed countries including Canada. Guideline recommendations for the treatment of RA include non-biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and biologic response modifiers (BRMs). The objective of this study was to evaluate the Canadian market for these RA treatments in the adult population in the last three years. METHODS: Data on retail prescriptions and drugstore and hospital purchases of non-biologic DMARDs and BRMs, including TNF-alpha inhibitors, for the treatment of RA in Canadian adults were obtained from IMS Brogan. The number of prescriptions and purchases (in $Can) were collected for 12-month periods ending February 2013 and November 2015. RESULTS: The total number of prescriptions for non-biologic DMARDs in Canada remained relatively stable at 1.41 million in 2013 to 1.55 million in 2015.  The same was true for TNF-alpha inhibitors with 223.3 thousand to 244.7 thousand prescriptions, in 2013 and 2015 respectively, while prescriptions for other BRMs increased 2.5 fold during this period, from 30.4 thousand to 75.6 thousand. Total drugstore and hospital purchases for non-biologic DMARDs were reduced by half, from $104.2 million in 2013 to $58.4 million in 2015. In contrast, total purchases for TNF-alpha inhibitors and other BRMs increased, respectively, by 23% and 30% during the same period. These were due to approximate 2-fold increases for infliximab (from $71.1 million to $164.6 million) and golimumab (from $33.1 million to $64.8 million), and to 3.9-fold and 1.7 fold increases for tocilizumab (from $9.5 million to $36.5 million) and abatacept (from $30.4 million to $52.3 million), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Disease-modifying treatment of RA in adults represents a market of three quarters of a billion dollars in Canada. In the last three years, market share of non-biologic DMARDs has decreased markedly while that of TNF-alpha inhibitors and other BRMs increased.