Administration Plan Paves Way for Safely Importing Prescription Drugs

Under one path in the administration's action plan, HHS would issue a regulation outlining how states and pharmacies could get the department's permission to import certain drugs from Canada. State proposals would have to demonstrate that the medicines they want to bring into the United States are safe, that the FDA has already approved these drugs for sale here and that consumers would save money by buying these medications. Not all drugs would be allowed to be imported. For example, controlled substances, biologics and certain injected drugs would be excluded.

Several states have already passed laws authorizing safe prescription drug importation. Health officials in Vermont, Florida, Colorado and Maine are working on proposals to submit to HHS. A survey in March by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation found that 8 in 10 Americans — across all political ideologies — support allowing Americans to buy medicines imported from Canada.

The National Academy for State Health Policy has identified a number of widely used and expensive prescription drugs that consumers could save a lot of money on if they could be purchased from Canada. For example, as of 2017, one capsule of Lyrica, a common treatment for nerve damage, cost $6.04 in the United States, compared with 63 cents in Canada. And the price of one tablet of Xarelto, used to prevent and treat blood clots, was $12.44 in the U.S. and $2.11 in Canada. Drug prices in Canada are lower in part because the government helps ensure that pharmaceutical prices are not excessive.

The second path the administration's plan outlines would allow drugmakers to import versions of their own products that are marked for sale in foreign countries. Pharmaceutical manufacturers would have to prove to the FDA that the drug they are selling abroad is the same as the U.S. version.