[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2100-2101]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      PHARMACEUTICAL MARKET ACCESS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, yesterday I and 28 of my Senate colleagues 
introduced legislation allowing the reimportation of FDA-approved 
prescription drugs from Canada and other countries. We have introduced 
legislation of this type before, but we have been blocked from 
consideration in the Senate. We do not intend to be blocked this year. 
We intend to get the Senate on record. We believe there are sufficient 
votes in the Senate to pass a bill dealing with the reimportation of 
prescription drugs. We very much hope we can get a bill to the 
President and have that legislation signed.
  The 29 Senators who have reached agreement on this represent a broad 
bipartisan consensus in the Senate. That bipartisan group includes 
Senator Snowe, Senator Grassley, Senator Kennedy, Senator McCain, 
Senator Lott, Senator Stabenow, and many others--a broad group of 
Republicans and Democrats joining together to try to put downward 
pressure on prescription drug prices.
  Let me show two pill bottles in the Senate. These bottles held the 
drug called Lipitor, one of the most popular cholesterol-lowering drugs 
in America. Obviously, the Lipitor tablets that went into these two 
bottles are made by the same company. In each bottle, it is the same 
FDA-approved tablet, made by the same company in the same plant and put 
in the same pill bottle. The only difference is price. This bottle was 
sent to a Canadian pharmacy that paid $1.01 per tablet; this one was 
sent to the United States pharmacy that paid $1.81 per tablet.
  Why are the Americans charged nearly double for the same pill, put in 
the same bottle, made by the same company? Because the company can and 
does call the shots. We do have price controls on prescription drugs in 
this country: it is the pharmaceutical industry that is controlling 
prices, and they have decided that the U.S. consumers should pay the 
highest prices in the world for prescription medicines.
  Many of us believe that should not be the case. Miracle drugs offer 
no miracles to those who cannot afford them. We have so many senior 
citizens living on fixed incomes in this country who need prescription 
drugs. Senior citizens are 12 percent of this country's population. Yet 
they consume over one-third of all the prescription drugs in

[[Page 2101]]

our country. That is why this issue is so important.
  The reimportation legislation we have introduced is again a broad 
bipartisan agreement between Republicans and Democrats, one we intend 
to push to a vote. We believe it is finally time that we have a vote in 
the House and the Senate and get a bill to the President. We understand 
the President has not supported this. We understand the Food and Drug 
Administration has been very strong and assertive in saying there are 
safety issues with this legislation.
  That, of course, is patently absurd. We have had testimony before the 
U.S. Congress that in Europe, for 20 years, they have done 
reimportation. In Europe, they call it ``parallel trading,'' where if 
you are from France and want to buy a prescription drug from Germany, 
that is just fine. If you are from Italy and want to buy a prescription 
drug from Spain, that is just fine. Parallel trading in pharmaceuticals 
has occurred for 20 years, and there has been no safety issue.
  We had a pharmaceutical company executive named Dr. Peter Rost, the 
vice president of marketing for a major drug company, who said:

       The biggest argument against reimportation is safety. What 
     everyone has conveniently forgotten to tell you is that in 
     Europe, reimportation of drugs has been in place for 20 
     years.

  This is an executive from the drug industry itself.
  He said something else that is important:

       During my time responsible for a region in northern Europe, 
     I never once--not once--heard the drug industry, regulatory 
     agencies, the government, or anyone else saying that this 
     practice was unsafe.

  He is talking about the practice of importing drugs between 
countries. He goes on to say:

       And personally, I think it is outright derogatory to claim 
     that the Americans would not be able to handle reimportation 
     of drugs, when the rest of the educated world can do this.

  This is a big issue. This is not a small issue. The price of 
prescription drugs is on the march upward. Too many Americans cannot 
afford their medication. It is unfair to have the American people 
charged the highest prices in the world. We are talking only about 
importing FDA-approved drugs made in FDA-approved plants, in many cases 
put in identical bottles, shipped to two different locations. One 
location is to an American who will pay the highest price, and the 
other location is to other major countries around the world whose 
citizens are charged much lower prices.
  We think that is unfair. We intend to try to put downward pressure on 
drug prices in this country by using trade. Let the American people 
benefit from this kind of trade.
  Finally, if people wonder whether the price difference is just with 
respect to Lipitor, it is not. The unfair price discrepancy is 
significant for Prevacid, Zocor, Nexium, Zoloft--the list is very 
substantial.
  For instance, Nexium is advertised a great deal on television. In the 
United States the price for 90 doses is $409. The price in Canada is 
$239. Or Zocor. A well-known football coach on television tells us how 
important Zocor is. As an American, he pays $383 for 90 doses; a 
Canadian pays 46 percent less. That describes the problem we are trying 
to correct.

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