Excellent omnibus article on healthcare in the Age of Obama in this month’s edition of PharmaVoice. It’s titled, “Obamaceuticals” and can be found here.
It covers a myriad of important and timely issues (comparative effectiveness, FDA reform, reimbursement strategies, follow-on biologics, etc.). And one nonsense topic – drug importation.
And since, courtesy of Senator Dorgan and friends, we once again must address this sideshow issue, herewith how I was quoted in this article on this topic:
Mr. Pitts wants to make one thing perfectly clear: “First of all, there is no such thing as drug re-importation.” “The term is a political one that is factually incorrect,” he says. “Re-importation implies that drugs that have already been approved by the FDA are being moved out of the United States and sold back in. In its current use, the term refers to the practice of allowing drugs from other countries that have less regulatory control to be sold to U.S. patients. That is drug importation. “For example, in Great Britain 20% of drugs are parallel traded with Portugal, Greece, Latvia, in other words, countries that don’t have as robust a regulatory regime as the United Kingdom, the United States, or even Canada,” he adds. “The drugs a patient gets from an Internet U.K. pharmacy are not legal in Canada, let alone the United States. Patients are led to believe they are getting the same drug and they are not.” Reports show that drug importation would reduce drug prices over 10 years by less than 0.1%, Mr. Pitts says. “Importation is a great sound bite, but at the end of the day, it has serious safety considerations and doesn’t save a bit of money,” he says. “I don’t think HHS Secretary Sebelius would ever say these drugs are safe and put her signature on a bill that does.”
That last sentence refers specifically to the issue of Secretarial Certification (not in Senator Dorgan’s amendment, but in thoughtful language offered by Senator Cochran and others).
Okay, once more into the abyss -- when it comes to drug importation, there is no there there when it comes to savings – but there are serious safety implications.
The there that is there is that drug importation is a direct path to price controls.
Should drug safety (not to mention intellectual property rights) be sacrificed at this dubious altar?
Center for Medicine in the Public Interest is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization promoting innovative solutions that advance medical progress, reduce health disparities, extend life and make health care more affordable, preventive and patient-centered. CMPI also provides the public, policymakers and the media a reliable source of independent scientific analysis on issues ranging from personalized medicine, food and drug safety, health care reform and comparative effectiveness.
