Can you trust Turkey-approved Alipza? Is it the same as U.S.-Approved Livalo?
This post is mostly a story about a very well manufactured, safe and effective, foreign version of an FDA-approved drug. These drugs are normally far less expensive than the FDA-approved version sold in the U.S. and arguably just as safe. The FDA can prevent the importation of such drugs – but the agency is actually encouraged by law not to do so if the import is for personal use only. It’s also a story about consumers and their providers navigating conflicting public information about buying less expensive medicines online from foreign countries.
A friend of mine, who has very difficult to control cholesterol, was prescribed Livalo, an FDA-approved brand of the drug pitavastatin. Let’s call him John. With his insurance, Livalo still costs John about $310 for a three-month supply – about 90 pills. He doesn’t want to pay that much if he can help it. John knows about our company, PharmacyChecker. He went to our site to discover that brand-name Livalo (pitavastatin) costs only $90 for a three-month supply at the lowest-cost PharmacyChecker-accredited international online pharmacy: a savings of 71%. That wasn’t enough to convince John to move forward with the purchase. Why not? That brand-name pitavastatin, sold in Turkey, is sold under the name Alipza – not Livalo.
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