The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday authorized Florida to launch a program to purchase drugs from Canada, which should allow the southern state to reduce the medical bill of its residents.
The FDA clarified, in a press release, that the authorization would only concern “certain prescribed drugs” as long as their importation from Canada “significantly reduces the cost for American consumers without causing any additional risk to public health”.
Concretely, the authorization is granted for two years, from receipt of the first shipment of drugs from Canada and involves regular reports from the Florida health authorities concerning the progress of the program.
Several other American states have made a similar request and could join Florida in creating this type of program.
Because the question of the price of treatments is thorny in the United States, where the cost of prescription drugs is on average 2.5 times higher than that observed in other developed countries, for the same products.
American President Joe Biden had made the issue of lowering drug prices one of his major projects, assuring that he intended to “stand up to Big Pharma», a term which designates large pharmaceutical groups.
The authorization granted by the FDA is, however, a victory for one of its potential opponents, the governor of Florida and candidate for the Republican nomination, Ron DeSantis, considered one of the potential challengers of the big favorite on the Republican side, Donald Trump.
At the beginning of October, several large pharmaceutical groups, including the Swedish-British AstraZeneca, the Swiss Novartis and the Danish Novo Nordisk, agreed to begin negotiations with a view to lowering the prices of ten drugs treating serious and widely prescribed pathologies.
These are treatments prescribed for blood clots, diabetes, heart problems, psoriasis and blood cancers.
Groups in the sector believe they have been forced to enter into negotiations, due to provisions provided for in the framework of the major “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA), known for its measures in favor of the energy transition but which also includes numerous social reforms.
Several pharmaceutical groups immediately took legal action, but refused to participate in the negotiations which expose them to bitter consequences, such as tax sanctions.
Novo Nordisk had described the price control program imposed by the government as “unconstitutional”, against which it filed an appeal.
