August 7, 2019 – Canada Drugs

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Anchor lead: Canada says it won’t formalize drug sales to the US, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Insulin is just one example of a drug Americans regularly travel to Canada to purchase in order to save money. Now the Canadian government has stated it will not formalize this practice. Jeremy Greene, a pharmaceutical pricing activist and physician at Johns Hopkins, says this is perfectly understandable.

Greene: Canada has its own regulatory process and its own drug pricing process which is geared towards the needs of the Canadian public. They only have so much insulin which is available at the price they sell it and its intended to be targeted towards the public health needs of Canada. The idea of formalizing a long term relationship of sending Americans to Canada or shipping insulin to the United States as a way of dealing with the failure of the United States own pharmaceutical policy to insure affordable insulin for our constituents, that would be a nonstarter for the Canadian government and I can understand why they would take that position.  :32

Greene says our own federal government needs to step in, as insulin is just one example of a drug that’s increasingly unaffordable for many Americans. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.