US Senate backing for Canadian imports
pharmafile | October 29, 2003 | News story | |Â Â Â
The US Senate has backed a limited scheme to allow the parallel importation of drugs from Canada in order to save patients billions of dollars.
The measure has been proposed as part of wider reforms of the Medicare insurance system, currently being debated by the Senate and House of Representatives.
The one-year Democrat-sponsored pilot is an amended version of earlier proposals, which, despite obtaining approval by both houses of Congress, were rejected for safety reasons by the Bush administration on the grounds that they would allow imports from a wide range of countries.
But the new plans, which were passed 62 to 28, now allow US pharmacies and wholesalers to import drugs from Canada only, and attempt to introduce pricing competition to the US.
The news is a blow for the industry, which fears parallel imports could erode its US profits as it has in Europe, where a large proportion of drugs sold in high price countries such as the UK and Germany are parallel imports.
GlaxoSmithKline was the first company to announce it was blocking parallel imports from Canada in February, despite considerable organised opposition from the Stop Glaxo Now coalition of seniorsgroups, which is boycotting GSK's OTC products.
AstraZeneca has now followed GSK's practice of limiting sales of some of its drugs to Canadian pharmacies in a bid to block the practice, which has won the backing of the FDA and the Canadian Competition Bureau.
These efforts to stem the tide could now be undermined by Lead sponsor of the amendment Democrat Senator Byron Dorgan (North Dakota), who says it could lead to annual savings among patients of up to $38 billion.
"Right now, US consumers pay the highest prices in the world for prescription medicines", he said. "That's because pharmaceutical companies are able to monopoly-price their medicines here".
"It's not my intention to require Americans to purchase their prescription drugs in Canada. Rather, what I trying to do is introduce a little market competition in this country, by allowing lower priced medicines from Canada to compete, and exert a little downward pressure on prices here".
He added: "Miracle drugs offer no miracles to those who can afford them".
The pharmaceutical industry lobby group PhRMA is fiercely opposed to the plans which could cost it billion in lost revenue and says the safety of imported medicines cannot be guaranteed.
"Every federal regulatory agency has condemned re-importation as unsafe and risky for patients", said PhRMA spokesman Jeff Trewitt. "Two secretaries of Health and Human Services, one a Republican and one a Democrat, have declined to certify the safety of imported medicines. We should all be concerned about the threat of sub-standard and counterfeit medicines".
