Do you trust your government?
(COMTEX) FDA Warns that Efforts to Import Canadian Drugs Could Hurt Innovation
<font color=red>IOW, Americans must let their pocketbooks be raped so we can have cheaper drugs for the rest of the world.
Well, f$uck them, I'm getting tired of footing the bill for the rest of the world</font>
Feb 18, 2004 (The Sacramento Bee - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via
COMTEX) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned Tuesday that city and
state efforts to import cheaper drugs from Canada could force pharmaceutical
companies to curtail development of new medicines, particularly in California
and other regions with robust biotechnology sectors.
During a visit to Sacramento to discourage Canadian prescription purchasing
proposals under consideration by elected officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco
and the state Legislature, FDA officials said any business sent across the
border could dampen medical innovation by depressing revenues of U.S. drug
makers.
Price controls in Canada make prescriptions, on average, 40 percent cheaper than
they are in American drug stores.
Hoping to save money, California is one of at least 11 states considering bills
that would allow government health programs to buy drugs from Canada. States and
cities are also considering legislation to facilitate the safe purchase of drugs
from Canada for individual consumers.
Though it is illegal, an estimated 1 million consumers buy medicines from
Canada, accounting for at least $1 billion in annual prescription sales.
FDA officials took a new tack Tuesday to quiet the budding rebellion from a
chorus of consumers, governors, and mayors clamoring for the federal government
to relax the foreign drug import ban.
In addition to stressing the safety risks of illegal foreign prescription
purchases, as regulators have done before, FDA associate commissioner Peter
Pitts said the illicit drug deals would "undermine the innovation" that brings
the best medicine in the world to market in United States.
"We must keep the pump primed for research and development," Pitts said. "We
depend on the cutting edge medicines produced by the companies that make the
investment in science. These companies are in the business of improving health
care, but they are also in the business of making profits."
The FDA has an interest in advancing medical research because that, in turn,
improves the overall quality of medications available to patients whose safety
the government is charged with protecting, Pitts added.
Drug development is big business.
California's roughly 2,500 biomedical companies reported nearly $7.8 billion in
global revenues and spent more than $2.1 billion researching new medicines in
2000, the most recent year for which figures are available. The California
Healthcare Institute, a trade organization for the biomedical industry, projects
that those figures have grown at least 15 percent in each subsequent year.
Drug makers in California also received nearly $2.3 billion in government grants
for drug development in 2000, more than the National Institutes of Health
awarded in any other state.
Patient advocates complain that the huge government investment in drug research
should entitle Americans to cheaper prescriptions. Consumer groups also maintain
that drug makers' advertising budgets are at least twice what they spend on
research and development.
As long as the United States does not regulate drug prices, patients should have
a right to buy medicines from Canada, consumer advocates and a growing number of
elected leaders insist.
"You have to question why the FDA is siding with drug makers and pharmacists who
have a huge financial interest in keeping drug imports illegal," said Jerry
Flannagan, with the Foundation for Consumer and Taxpayer Rights.
Campaign contributions have colored the FDA stance on drug imports, Flannagan
charged. In the 2002 election cycle, pharmaceutical companies contributed $27
million in individual, PAC and soft money contributions to Congress, according
to the Center for Responsive Politics. Republicans got 75 percent of that money.
Drug makers readily concede that U.S. consumers bear the lion's share of the
costs for development of new medicines. But David Gollaher, head of the
California Healthcare Institute, said opponents of the prescription import ban
don't understand the benefits of paying for drug research.
"Canada and Western European countries that regulate drug prices have lost their
indigenous pharmaceutical industries," Gollaher said. "In the free market of the
United States, where prices are certainly higher, patients are getting access to
drugs in human trials faster and seeing the benefits of medical innovation much
sooner than patients overseas."
FDA director Mark McClellan is scheduled to address the government's interest in
banning drug imports to preserve innovation during a speech at a biotechnology
conference in Southern California on Thursday.
Though Pitts, of the FDA, met Tuesday with officials in Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's administration to discuss the legality of various Canadian
import proposals being debated around the state, a spokeswoman for the governor
said he had yet to take a position on foreign drug imports.
"The governor is concerned about rising prescription drug costs," said
spokeswoman Ashley Snee. "He does want to address this issue in a way that is
legal and that will not compromise patient safety."
By Lisa Rapaport
To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
sacbee.com
(c) 2004, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Business News.
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