Thursday, May 13, 2004
CVS calls for drug reimportation
[Mark Sherman, "CVS Pharmacy backs imports," Associated Press, The Sun-Sentinel, 6 May 2004.]
Drug store chain CVS recently joined the push for importing drugs from Canada. He is correct to point out that legalization would put an end to what is essentially black market trade, but he is wrong to think that this will be the solution to drug prices in the U.S. Such a strategy will only hasten the collapse of Canadian price controls.
Breaking with others in his industry, the chief executive of CVS Pharmacy called Wednesday for legalizing imports of prescription drugs.
The statement by the nation's largest wholesale purchaser of prescription medicines was issued a day after the Bush administration's health secretary said legalizing imports appears inevitable.
"While many in our industry believe that the importation issue is a fundamentally flawed concept and oppose it without exception, I come with a slightly different view," Thomas Ryan, CVS chairman and chief executive officer, told a government task force on drug importation.
Ryan is the first executive of a large drug store chain to support importing drugs from countries where prices are controlled by governments so that people can fill prescriptions more cheaply than they can at U.S. pharmacies. Ryan said such a move would be a recognition of reality -- a growing, somewhat shadowy business enterprise that he said is valued at $2.5 billion to $3 billion a year, far more than other estimates of the cross-border drug trade.
[Mark Sherman, "CVS Pharmacy backs imports," Associated Press, The Sun-Sentinel, 6 May 2004.]
Drug store chain CVS recently joined the push for importing drugs from Canada. He is correct to point out that legalization would put an end to what is essentially black market trade, but he is wrong to think that this will be the solution to drug prices in the U.S. Such a strategy will only hasten the collapse of Canadian price controls.
Breaking with others in his industry, the chief executive of CVS Pharmacy called Wednesday for legalizing imports of prescription drugs.
The statement by the nation's largest wholesale purchaser of prescription medicines was issued a day after the Bush administration's health secretary said legalizing imports appears inevitable.
"While many in our industry believe that the importation issue is a fundamentally flawed concept and oppose it without exception, I come with a slightly different view," Thomas Ryan, CVS chairman and chief executive officer, told a government task force on drug importation.
Ryan is the first executive of a large drug store chain to support importing drugs from countries where prices are controlled by governments so that people can fill prescriptions more cheaply than they can at U.S. pharmacies. Ryan said such a move would be a recognition of reality -- a growing, somewhat shadowy business enterprise that he said is valued at $2.5 billion to $3 billion a year, far more than other estimates of the cross-border drug trade.
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