Reuters: Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Company said…that it is working with the US Food and Drug Administration to temporarily import and distribute penicillin in the country….Cuban’s Cost Plus will import Lentocilin powder of the penicillin brand sold by Laboratórios Atral SA of Portugal .
There are two notable things in the above passage. First, penicillin is in short supply in the United States! You are crazy. The second notable thing is that the FDA has approved the temporary importation of penicillin from Portugal. In other words, the FDA will accept the EMA’s approval of penicillin as its own, at least for the purposes of reducing shortages. That’s good. What is needed, however, is a lasting form of peer approval.
I have long advocated peer approval or reimbursement for any drug or device approved in a peer country but note that this peer approval method is only for drugs already approved in the United States. So, the approval is actually for labeling and manufacturing only, it’s a very small question.
Peer approval in exports can also help target domestic firms that sometimes use monopoly power to raise prices. Indeed, you may remember Martin Shkreli and the massive price increase of Daraprim (Pyrimethamine) to $750 a pill when the same pill was available in Europe for $1 or less and in India for ten cents. Importing would have solved that problem completely.
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