Here some common questions about the bill, along with answers provided by the bill’s sponsors:

Q: [...]]]> We’ve received a lot of questions from the eDrugSearch.com community about the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act of 2009, the proposed legislation that would enable Americans, once and for all, to legally purchase prescription drugs from Canada.

Here some common questions about the bill, along with answers provided by the bill’s sponsors:

Q: Why is this bill necessary?

A: American consumers are charged the highest prices in the world for the same medicines that are available in other major, industrialized nations at a fraction of the cost. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this legislation will save U.S. consumers more than $50 billion over the next decade. The legislation will allow American consumers to import FDA–approved prescription drugs at the substantially lower prices available on the world market.

Q: How will it work?

A: Individual consumers will be able to purchase prescription medicines from registered Canadian pharmacies for their personal use or the personal use of a family member, via mail–order or the Internet. The FDA will be required to make available on its Web site a list of the Canadian pharmacies that are approved to ship prescription drugs to Americans. Drugs imported by American consumers would have to be in a 90–day supply or less, accompanied by a valid prescription.

Q: From what countries can prescription drugs be purchased under the act?

A: Individual Americans can purchase medicines from Canada via mail–order or the Internet from Canadian pharmacies registered with the FDA. In addition, the bill allows U.S.–licensed pharmacies and drug wholesalers to import FDA–approved medications from Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan and pass along the savings to their American customers.

Q: Won’t Big Pharma just shut off supplies to Canadian pharmacies that sell to Americans?

A: For some time, Pfizer, Glaxo Smith Kline, Eli Lilly and others have worked to shut off the supply of drugs to those in Canada that export drugs to American consumers. Under the proposed legislation, such tactics are deemed an unfair and discriminatory trade practice and will not be permitted.

Q: What about Big Pharma’s claims that the proposed legislation would reduce their profits, and that research and development of new drugs would suffer as a result?

A: Drug companies spend a significant (and increasing) portion of their budgets on product promotion. In fact, Fortune 500 pharmaceutical companies on average spend nearly three times more on marketing, advertising, and administration than they do on R&D. And yet, the pharmaceutical industry never talks about needing to cut back on drug advertising. In addition, American taxpayers heavily subsidize pharmaceutical research both through the tax code and research at the National Institutes of Health.

Q: How much will American consumers save as a result of the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act of 2009?

A: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the legislation would reduce total drug spending by $50 billion over 10 years, with $10 billion of that in savings to the federal government. It’s important to note that the CBO found these significant savings even after adjusting for the weakening of the U.S. dollar and assuming that the dollar would remain at the same weak level over the course of its estimate. If the value of the dollar were to strengthen, the actual savings could increase substantially.

This needed legislation is currently in committee, where it could easily stall without your support. Please call your Congressman and Senator and ask them to bring the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act to a vote.

Check it out and start saving on your prescription drugs now!

Check it out and start saving on your prescription drugs now!

eDrugSearch.com’s 99 Ways to Save Money on Your Prescription Drugs 2012 Edition

A major drug wholesaler, McKesson Corp., and [...]]]> You probably didn’t see it in the news — since it got about 1/1000th of the coverage received by Sarah Palin spatting with David Letterman and Spencer and Heidi quitting “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here” — but a noteworthy legal settlement occurred last week.

A major drug wholesaler, McKesson Corp., and two drug-price publishers have settled a class-action lawsuit accusing them of inflating drug prices. Here’s an explanation of what they did, according to the suit:

“Prescription drugs often are priced using certain benchmarks. The most common pricing benchmark is called the Average Wholesale Price (“AWP”). AWP is often used in determining how much insurance companies and other Third-Party Payors will reimburse for these prescription drugs and the co-payment price that some consumers pay for them. The lawsuit claims that two Defendants, McKesson Corporation (“McKesson”), a large drug wholesaler, and First DataBank (“FDB”), a publisher of drug data, wrongfully inflated the mark-up factor used by FDB to determine the AWP for certain prescription drugs (“Subject Drugs”). The lawsuit claims that, as a result, many drug purchasers overpaid for these drugs.”

The defendants have agreed to pay out $350 million to reimburse patients, insurers and employers. And — here’s the really interesting part — the court has ordered the prices of hundreds of brand-name drugs to be cut by about 4 percent, which, theoretically, could result in $1 billion in drug savings the first year alone.

But don’t count on dollars dropping from the sky in your direction. Analysts told the Wall Street Journal that drug pricing is so “opaque and complex, patients won’t likely get meaningful and long-lasting relief.”

I’m afraid I have to agree that most Americans will never see a dime of savings from this settlement. But let me break down this “opaque and complex” thing, because it’s really neither.

Many of these brand-name drugs have patents that give them pricing monopolies. They can throw a dart at the board and make the price whatever they want.

So, the court orders a 4 percent price cut? Whoa!

It’s not uncommon for drug makers to raise their prices by five times that in a year. What’s another 4 percent thrown in? Who would know? And who are we kidding?

Opaque, huh?

To find out if you are eligible to collect from the $350 million settlement fund, go here.

And for a complete list of the overpriced drugs, which include Lipitor, Lamisil, Monistat, Cipro, Ultracet, Zofran and many, many more, go here.

Scientific American has published an article examining the problem of high prescription drug costs as well as proposed solutions. Some salient stats referenced in the article:

A North Dakota news site reports that drug prices are under the microscope in the state as legislators consider repealing a law that prevents most chain pharmacies from competing there. The law requires pharmacies to be majority-owned by North Dakota licensed pharmacists.

Supporters of repeal argue that allowing the big retailers [...]]]>

A North Dakota news site reports that drug prices are under the microscope in the state as legislators consider repealing a law that prevents most chain pharmacies from competing there. The law requires pharmacies to be majority-owned by North Dakota licensed pharmacists.

Supporters of repeal argue that allowing the big retailers to offer prescription drugs will encourage price competition and result in lower costs for consumers. To test this, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead “took the five most common prescription drugs in North Dakota and compared their prices at four area pharmacies – two in North Dakota and two in Minnesota.”

The results showed that North Dakotans weren’t paying more for these drugs than Minnesotans, after all. However, there was something striking about the survey. It revealed huge, seemingly random variation in pricing for top-selling drugs. The location of the pharmacy was not a factor in these variations.

For example, some pharmacies in both states sold the cholesterol drug Simvastin (20 mg, 30 count) for less than $20, whereas a North Dakota CVS was selling the same medication (same dosage, same quantity) for $54.59.

The reality is that large chains can help with the prices of some generics — the Wal-Mart $4 drug program has been matched by an increasing number of competitors — but there is still little real price competition for the vast majority of prescription drugs, whether or not national chains are part of the mix.

There are two main reasons for this:

1. Pharmaceutical companies have patents that give them virtual monopolies on the sale of brand-name drugs in the United States, allowing them to charge distributors whatever they wish.

2. Pharmacies are not transparent in sharing their prices on most drugs with consumers — meaning it is difficult to comparison shop, a fact that results in inefficient, inflated pricing.

For both these reasons, eDrugSearch.com is the better option — particularly for the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance.