A view on Reimporting Prescrption Drugs

Importing drugs is cowardly and makes no sense.
Cowardly, because politicians who back Rx imports are really seeking to import price controls, without saying so.
Makes no sense because US demand would quickly overwhelm the drug supply and drive prices up in the targeted countries: Canada, Ireland, New Zealand. And the locals won’t permit that.
Americans are wealthy and smart enough to figure this out themselves. And Americans also don’t want to lose world leadership in pharma R&D (and jobs).
Ask Europe how medical-pharma R&D & investment have gone, since they restricted Rx prices and patient access to treatment.
That said, pharma needs a new longer-term value proposition, for sure.
Comment by Cam Battley - March 12, 2008 at 4:39 pm

Drugs on line

President Bush last weekend called on Congress to pass legislation that would restrict the online sales of prescription drugs, but the president's request addresses "a symptom and not the cause of one of the country's top medical problems": the high cost of medications in the U.S., Los Angeles Times columnist David Lazarus writes. According to Lazarus, many U.S. residents, "including numerous seniors and people with chronic conditions, obtain prescription drugs from international sources not because they're scratching some itch for faraway places," but because "they can't afford U.S. drug prices."