by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | Aug 7, 2013 | Advocacy, Healthcare Reform, Personal Drug Importation
PharmacyCheckerBlog has reported on the potential effects of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) with respect to drug prices and access to medication. Our friends at RxRights.org provide an excellent discussion of this topic as it applies to seniors on Medicare Part D, and more specifically how personal drug importation will remain an important channel to medicine for those slipping through the cracks. Read their post here.
Tagged with: Medicare, Obamacare, seniors
by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | Jun 21, 2013 | Advocacy, Healthcare Reform, Politics
Maine residents may soon have easier access to lower cost prescription drugs from international online pharmacies, if Governor Paul LePage signs a bill recently passed by the Maine Legislature. The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support – 107 yeas to 37 nays and seven abstentions in the House, and 30 yeas to four nays, with one excused in the Senate. The new law would make it expressly legal, not just “permitted,” to import medication for personal use. The bill was written partly as a response to the Maine Attorney General shutting down importation programs last September that were clearly safe and helping cut prescription costs. The bill’s passage would allow those programs to operate.
PharmacyChecker.com vice president Gabriel Levitt weighed in on Maine Public Broadcasting Network yesterday, defending consumers by explaining that millions of Americans who can’t afford medication are wrongly dissuaded from ordering it online: “The problem is certain groups, often funded by the pharmaceutical industry, are telling Americans that there’s no way to get medications safely online, and it is just not true.”
Listen to the broadcast and read the accompanying article here.
Tagged with: Maine, NPR
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jun 19, 2013 | Healthcare Reform, Pharmaceutical Industry, Politics
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of consumers over drug companies by ruling that pay-to-delay tactics by pharmaceutical companies could violate antitrust laws. This could mean speedier access to low-cost generic drugs, greater prescription adherence among cash-strapped Americans, and lower healthcare payments for taxpayers.
In this landmark case, Federal Trade Commission vs. Actavis, the Court decided 5-3 that generic drug company Actavis may have violated federal anti-trust laws in accepting payment from a brand name drug company, Solvay Pharmaceuticals, to delay manufacturing a generic version of AndroGel. An important caveat of the decision is that patent settlements between drug companies are not unlawful by definition but that the law is flexible enough on a case by case basis to conclude that pay-to-delay is anti-competitive, and under some circumstances illegal.
The FTC has estimated that Americans spend an extra $3.5 billion each year because of pay-to-delay practices. If drug companies are deterred from attempting pay-to-delay agreements then more generics will be found on U.S. pharmacy shelves faster. FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez summed up the decision: “The Supreme Court’s decision is a significant victory for American consumers, American taxpayers and free markets.”
Tagged with: pay for delay, Solvay, Supreme Court
by Tod Cooperman, MD, President, PharmacyChecker.com, and Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com | Mar 7, 2013 | Drug Importation, Healthcare Reform, Online Pharmacies, Pharmaceutical Industry
Dr. Roger Bate, an economist who publishes extensively about drug quality, safety, and intellectual property, finds himself a bit out in the cold right now and we think that’s wrong. It’s all because of his latest work on Internet pharmacies and personal drug importation.
He was once a favorite of the pharmaceutical industry. In a 2004 National Review article called “What Patent Problem?” Dr. Bate enraged the progressive, health activist community for arguing that patents are not obstacles to needed medication in poor countries because 95% of World Health Organization Essential Medicines are already off patent. Arguments like those were welcomed by industry, but things have changed. His recent research showing that personal drug importation (which undermines pharmaceutical profits) through online pharmacies can be safe has made him persona non grata in some pharma circles, despite his other positions which support pharma. Unfortunately, it seems the health activist community is also hesitant to embrace Dr. Bate’s current work on personal drug importation, perhaps because they don’t want to lend credence to his past research.
We think it’s time that everyone, including the FDA, listens carefully to what Dr. Bate is saying about personal drug importation. After extensive mystery shopping and testing of products, Dr. Bate came to a very simple conclusion: As long as people purchased medication from websites (foreign or domestic) approved by PharmacyChecker.com or the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, they were generally safe doing so. His data also showed that Americans could save a lot of money (an average of 52%) on brand name medicines from legitimate pharmacies outside the U.S. He believes this option, to be fair, should exist mainly for lower income individuals rather than people able to afford U.S. prices.
Dr. Bate’s conclusions about online pharmacy are an inconvenient truth for the pharmaceutical industry and U.S. pharmacies – which include some of the funders of his employer, the American Enterprise Institute. These industries lobby the government to prevent Americans from accessing drugs online at lower cost from foreign pharmacies. Their strategy has been to ignore Dr. Bate’s findings on Internet pharmacies. The FDA seems to be playing the same game by scaring the public away from personal drug importation through public information campaigns, such as Be Safe Rx.
We know that Dr. Bate’s work on online pharmacies is guided by hard data, objective analysis, and his free market sensibilities. We do not agree with his positions on all subjects, but his studies on drug safety demand respect from all sides and could help policy-makers reach the right conclusions for the public good.
Tagged with: Counterfeit Medication, Online Pharmacies, Pharma, Roger Bate
by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | Jan 11, 2013 | Drug Prices, Healthcare Reform
In 2013 some Americans will start choosing health insurance plans offered by the new state-run health insurance exchanges. Designed to lower prices and increase competition, the exchanges will surely help millions of people access affordable care. However, health insurance plans often do not adequately cover prescription medications, and we are eager to follow the effectiveness of the exchanges as applied to prescription drug pricing.
While we hope (and believe) that increased coverage will enable more Americans to take needed medications, we believe that many will not benefit from the increased coverage. The Obama administration’s loose guidelines pertaining to prescription drugs and essential health benefits mandate that they require only one drug per class – in other words one statin (to treat high cholesterol), one proton pump inhibitors (to treat GERD), one inhaled steroid (to treat asthma), and so on, must be covered.
For many this will not be a problem. If there is only one prescription you plan on taking, you should be able to find a plan that covers it. If, however, you are taking multiple medications, things could get a bit hairy. Just because two drugs are in the same class doesn’t mean they work with the same efficacy for a given person. For example, atorvastatin (generic Lipitor) may work better for cholesterol treatment than simvastatin (generic Zocor) for one person, and vice versa for another. Imagine how difficult it would be to find an insurance plan that covers all your drugs if you are on three or four medications!
Some states plan to address this potential problem by requiring that plans offer more extensive drug coverage. As of October, 2012, an analysis of eight benchmark plans shows that they cover about 62% of drugs available in different classes.
While the health insurance exchanges are meant to provide a competitive marketplace that lowers costs, it isn’t as simple as just choosing a plan that covers the most drugs. You need to make sure it covers your drugs (in addition to other specific health benefits). We hope that the insurance exchanges will help end America’s $317 billion prescription non-adherence problem, but we fear that the pharmacy coverage under Obamacare won’t be nearly enough.
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jun 11, 2012 | Advocacy, Drug Importation, Healthcare Reform
It’s unfortunate, but now documented, that President Obama, who initially supported personal drug importation as a policy to lower drug prices, changed direction as part of a deal to gain the pharmaceutical industry’s support for his larger health care initiative. The details came out last week, as described in a New York Times article “Obama Was Pushed by Drug Industry, E-Mails Suggest.”
We hope that President Obama will return to supporting personal drug importation as the problem of high drug prices persists and tens of millions of Americans are going without needed medication. Although not publicly supporting it, fortunately, the government’s longstanding policy is not to interfere with individuals getting prescription medications from abroad. You can get information on licensed pharmacies and their drug prices on PharmacyChecker.com.
There are legislative actions in the works that could lead to a more aggressive enforcement policy through which personally imported medication could be destroyed. Americans can stop this from happening. Take action through RxRights.org to tell your elected officials where you stand.
Tagged with: Big Pharma, Drug Importation, Emails, Healthcare Act, Obama
