by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jul 13, 2018 | FDA enforcement
[UPDATE: Today (July 13th, 2018), CandaDrugs.com, and other sites it owns, such as JanDrugs.com, have stopped selling medicines to patients in the U.S. in accordance with an agreement with the U.S. Attorney in Montana. Below, please read to understand why this happened. Several stories in the media are reporting that the reason is that patients bought counterfeit drugs from the online pharmacy, which is not true.
Bottom line, as I see it: a very well-run, safe, international online pharmacy was forced by the U.S. government to stop helping Americans afford prescription drugs because the pharmaceutical industry wanted that outcome.
It’s a shame and American patients struggling with prescription costs are worse off for it.]
[FIRST PUBLISHED APRIL 13, 2018]
In a plea bargain signed today with the U.S. Department of Justice, the owners of CanadaDrugs.com are forfeiting their website www.CanadaDrugs.com and other websites they operate to the U.S. government. This is an unfortunate outcome of a case that did not involve medication sales of the popular website CanadaDrugs.com, which has been safely selling medication at low cost to Americans for many years. The case involved a separate wholesale business conducted by the owners of the website. Sadly, two counterfeit batches of the cancer medication, Avastin, entered the supply chain of that wholesale business in 2011 and were sold to medical offices in the U.S. To be clear, Avastin was never sold on the CanadaDrugs.com website.
For some balance and context: in the past, CVS and CVS.com were found to be selling counterfeit Lipitor, yet this did not lead to CVS having to forfeit its website to the U.S. government.
CanadaDrugs.com had been a verified member of the PharmacyChecker Verification Program since 2005. During that time, it likely processed millions of prescriptions and filled them from licensed pharmacies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. We have verified the licenses of these pharmacies. CanadaDrugs.com voluntarily withdrew from our program in March, aware of the pending deal with the U.S. government. The FDA recognizes that there is no urgency to shutting down CanadaDrugs.com, giving them 90 days to wind down their international retail pharmacy business. In fact, CanadaDrugs.com remains a licensed pharmacy in Manitoba, Canada.
It was necessary for the FDA to investigate and act to prevent medication from being illegally sold at a wholesale level into the U.S. The enforcement discretion used by the FDA for personal importation never extended to those who illegally import and resell medication. We at PharmacyChecker have never condoned such sales. However, the deal struck is likely to do more harm than good by shuttering a good online pharmacy that was operating safely. Making matters worse, this case has been and continues to be used by the pharmaceutical industry to fuel a campaign carried out by its front groups to scare Americans and stop them from buying lower cost, safe and effective medications from pharmacies in other countries.
Interestingly, just as the indictment in this case was slated for release in February of 2015, I sent a report to the members of congress most responsible for regulating the FDA called: “Online Pharmacies, Personal Drug Importation, and Public Health: Ill-Considered Enforcement Prevents Access to Safe and Affordable Medication.” Basically, it was my attempt to explain, with rigorous analysis and research, why shutting down the safest international online pharmacies is bad for public health. It was bad policy then and it remains so now with tens of millions of Americans not filling prescriptions each year because of cost.
Tagged with: avastin, canadadrugs, Enforcement
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Aug 12, 2015 | Advocacy, Cancer Drugs, Counterfeit Drugs, Drug Importation, FDA, Government, Personal Drug Importation
Almost three years ago, we blogged about a federal investigation of CanadaDrugs.com, which for many years has safely sold prescription medication at prices far lower than typically available in the U.S, and which is a verified online pharmacy in the PharmacyChecker.com Verification Program. The investigation focused on CanadaDrugs.com’s wholesale drug importation and distribution to doctors and clinics — an area CanadaDrugs.com has long since exited. It did not focus on CanadaDrugs.com’s retail sales to consumers for personal use, which is the focus of the PharmacyChecker.com Verification Program and the information we provide to consumers on our website about online pharmacies.
Recently, an indictment was unsealed in federal district court in Montana that charged CanadaDrugs.com, Ltd. (the entity which owns CanadaDrugs.com) and others with illegal wholesale drug importation, which allegedly occurred between three to six years ago. The allegations include wholesale distribution of a counterfeit version of the cancer drug Avastin to medical clinics in the U.S.
The indictment of CanadaDrugs, Ltd, comes as no surprise, as the investigation was well publicized. It will also come as no surprise, however, when the U.S. pharmaceutical industry tries to use the charges, which focus exclusively on wholesale drug importation, in an effort to discredit safe personal drug importation. As we have written here and opined in the New York Times, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry and pharmacy chains feel threatened because Americans can and do safely purchase their medications online at substantially lower cost from pharmacies in other countries. Thus, the industry, the “non-profit” groups it funds, and the government agencies which it lobbies and seeks to influence, will see this indictment as yet one more opportunity to scare people from personal drug importation. This slight of hand is wrong, since the investigation and indictment have nothing to do with personal drug importation. In fact, even the Wall Street Journal, which was instrumental in publicizing the investigation, clarified the difference between wholesale businesses and CanadaDrugs.com: “There is no indication that fake medicines were sold through the company’s consumer-focused website, CanadaDrugs.com.”
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Tagged with: avastin, canadadrugs, kamath, montana
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jul 20, 2012 | Counterfeit Drugs, Drug Importation, Online Pharmacies
For the last six months the WSJ has actively reported on fake Avastin purchased by some medical clinics in the United States. The latest report focuses on the fact that the owner of the foreign wholesaler that shipped the fake Avastin to the U.S. is also the owner of a large international online pharmacy called CanadaDrugs.com. The WSJ reporting makes it clear that the wholesale business is separate from CanadaDrugs.com.
CanadaDrugs.com is a long-standing member of the PharmacyChecker.com Verification Program. It takes orders online filled by licensed pharmacies that require a valid prescription. It does not sell Avastin and the WSJ didn’t report any safety problems associated with its operation.
PharmacyChecker.com’s programs are designed to provide information to consumers seeking safe and affordable medication online for their own use. We recognize that importation by medical clinics does occur and the reason is that drug prices of many drugs are unusually high in the United States. We believe that wholesale drug importation presents unique drug supply and safety challenges that should be addressed but are not related to personal drug importation.
Tagged with: avastin, CanadaDrugs.com, Counterfeit Drugs, personal drug importation, Wall Street Journal
