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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Canadians are in a kerfuffle over the Trump administration's preliminary plan to allow Americans to import lower-cost prescription medications from Canada.
The plan was announced July 31 and is part of the administration's long-sought effort to drag down the US's skyrocketing drug prices. But it's a long way from being a reality. Even if the plan does pan out, it will likely be years before regulators review, approve, and scale up efforts to import drugs.
Still, Canadians are infuriated by the idea and already brainstorming ways to toss it down the garburator, according to a report by health-news outlet STAT. Many fear that American importation would exacerbate current drug shortages in Canada.
"You are coming as Americans to poach our drug supply, and I don't have any polite words for that," Amir Attaran of the University of Ottawa told STAT. Prof. Attaran went on to refer to the plan as "deplorable" and "atrociously unethical." "Our drugs are not for you, period."
[...] On Monday, August 12, Canada's Minister of Health Ginette Petitpas Taylor was set to meet with pharmacists, patients, and industry officials to discuss a response to the US plan, according to STAT. Petitpas Taylor has pledged to "ensure there are no adverse effects to the supply or cost of prescription drugs in Canada."
In order to protect Canadians, some advocates and policy experts suggested that Canada could begin controlling the export of pharmaceuticals, pass new laws simply banning exporting drugs meant for Canadians, or impose new tariffs.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday August 13 2019, @01:37PM (3 children)
You mean the same drug companies that are selling the exact same drugs in Canada for 10% of the price? Canadian drugs aren't cheaper because they're coming from a different source, they're cheaper because their medical system is able to negotiate a more reasonable price. However, given the choice between lowering their prices 90% in the U.S., or raising them 10x in Canada, what do you suppose they're going to do? Keeping in mind Canada has 1/10th the population, so that the total drug profit for Canada is probably about 1% that of the U.S.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @04:34PM
I quite doubt that Big Pharma wants "their" drugs REALLY start coming from a different source.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 14 2019, @03:10AM (1 child)
Yes, that's what I mean. Canada requires that they sell them and sell them for those prices and threatens to ignore their patents if they don't. If Americans get to start partaking of that price as well, they lose a fuckton of money. They make some of that back if they sell domestically at the same price because there are no to-Canada-and-back shipping costs.
Or it could be a standard Trump game of chicken to get them to drop their prices a bit. He plays that a hell of a lot if you haven't noticed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 14 2019, @02:14PM
And? If Canada ignores their patents so someone else starts making them, they lose all of 1% of their combined U.S. + Canada profit. A far better outcome than lowering their prices in the U.S. and losing 90% of that profit. Those drugs still can't be imported into the U.S. since, quite aside from the current broad-spectrum ban on imported drugs, those specific drugs still violate U.S. patents and can't be legally imported.
Of course it would be a very different picture for generics, lifting the blanket ban could totally cut the legs out from under the U.S. makers with their price-gouging collusion. Or maybe not - with the U.S. market on the line U.S. companies might drastically increase their budget for buying Canadian politicians to "fix" their medical system. I think we'd need to lift the ban for far more than just Canada to be sure of avoiding that - let Americans import (FDA-approved) drugs from any major nation with a similarly safe pharmaceutical system and then you really let us benefit from global pricing, rather than just painting a bulls-eye on one particular nearby government to drag them down to our level.