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Prescription Drug Relief in
the Media
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| Foreign Drugs
Meet A Need That U.S. Has Ignored
Editorial USA Today Tuesday, August 12, 2003 |
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Five years ago, U.S. residents who bought lower-priced prescription drugs from Canada were mainly seniors along the border who made bus trips in search of affordable medicines. Today, the practice is a booming, if illegal, business. About 1 million U.S. consumers buy Canadian drugs, and dozens of storefronts have sprung up from California to Massachusetts offering to arrange purchases that now exceed $1 billion a year. The willingness of so many individuals and last month, even the Springfield, Mass., municipal government to defy a federal law against buying foreign drugs dramatizes the growing rebellion over a system that forces U.S. consumers to pay the highest drug prices in the world. Even if the House and Senate can agree on the specifics of a Medicare drug benefit for seniors when Congress reconvenes next month, it won't help the millions of others who can't afford needed medicines. Yet instead of working on constructive ways to address the problem, the drug industry and its richly rewarded political allies in Washington are fighting grassroots solutions such as Canadian purchases. Among the industry's obstructionist tactics: Pfizer, the world's largest drugmaker, last week became the latest supplier to limit or cut off sales of its products to Canadian pharmacies that continue filling U.S. orders. Under industry pressure, the Food and Drug Administration is threatening legal action against for-profit or volunteer groups that help patients fill out forms to meet Canada's prescription requirements. Programs launched by states to reduce the cost of drugs for their residents have been tied up in lawsuits by the industry. The industry says its large profit margins finance the costly development of new drugs, which could not be funded under the government price controls imposed in Canada and most other industrial countries. The industry is correct about the importance of funding research. Yet its big profits also funded the $26 million in political donations that drugmakers made in the last election. And they paid the salaries of 600 lobbyists who are fighting efforts to expand the federal government's power to negotiate lower drug prices. The FDA says foreign drugs are more likely to be unsafe or counterfeit. Yet while some foreign purchases entail greater risks, the Congressional Research Service concluded in 2001 and again this year that drug-safety rules in Canada are at least as strong as those in the U.S. No cases of counterfeit drugs have surfaced in Canada for more than a decade. Even Congress is belatedly recognizing that buying drugs from Canada can make sense. In a setback for the industry and House GOP leaders, 87 Republicans voted with 155 Democrats on July 25 to legalize drug purchases from Canada and 24 other nations with high quality-control standards. Clearly, filling prescriptions in Canada is not a long-term solution to the problem of drug affordability in the USA. For one thing, Canada's supply network is much too small to meet the huge potential demand from south of the border. But until the industry and Washington tackle the problem, they can't be surprised that Canadian drug purchases are a popular temporary solution for U.S. consumers. .: Top :. |
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Drug Price Policies Hurt Customers - Government Says BY Jennifer Heldt Powell The Boston Herald Wednesday, August 13, 2003 Gov. Mitt Romney admonished drug industry executives yesterday to change the way they set prices, taking into consideration public opinion. ``You need to think very carefully about how you price your products,'' he said. ``An important part of drug pricing has to be the implications of drug pricing on public opinion, on political opinion, on the way our entire governmental system approaches the industry.'' Drug companies also need to weigh the public impact when setting executive salaries, he said. Romney made the remarks to drug makers who gathered in Boston for an industry conference. Massachusetts, along with many other states, is struggling to cope with rapidly rising drug prices that have helped make public health programs into budget-busters. Drug makers need to improve public relations, Romney told conferencegoers. ``The industry as a whole has to do a much better job of communicating to the public,'' he said. ``There are tremendous levels of misunderstanding.'' The industry must better explain what it does with the huge profits consumers hear about, the former venture capitalist said. For instance, Romney said, the public should be told that it costs nearly $900 million to develop a drug and only one in 5,000 will make it to market. ``They don't recognize that that money goes back into the company's future,'' he said. Drug makers make tough decisions when setting prices, said Janice Bourque, president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council and a conference attendee. ``We have to make our investors happy and maximize a return to them but at the same time satisfy the public's desire for more new treatments and better treatments,'' Bourque said, speaking for the industry. ``That is very challenging.'' She agreed that the industry has to improve public relations. ``We've recognized that the public has a limited understanding of what drug development is all about,'' she said. ``Everyone has to work harder to help the public understand what the challenges are.'' Critics said Romney should have gone further in his remarks. ``It's outrageous,'' said Sen. Mark C. Montigny (D-New Bedford). ``Talking with this industry, schmoozing with this industry, will not work.'' He said the government needs to demand lower drug prices. Also at the conference yesterday, federal Food and Drug Administration chief Mark B. McClellan pledged to cut the regulatory costs of drug development. ``Rising health care costs threaten affordability,'' he said. ``It's already affecting how people buy their drugs. People are taking the risk of buying drugs through systems we can't regulate.'' Patients are buying drugs from Canada, where prices are kept low through government controls. The FDA will do more to help companies by making the drug-review process simpler and more predictable, McClellan said. .: Top :. |