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| ABC News |
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Cheaper in Canada
Why Do Drugs Cost Less Outside the United
States?
[found through a Google search by article title on the date above]
Excerpt--
— Canada's national health plan pays for doctor visits and hospital
stays. But outside the hospital — unless a patient is 65 or older, or on welfare — the government plan does not
cover prescription drugs.
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Canadians, like Americans, must get insurance from an employer or independently,
or else pay the full cost of medications themselves. ...
Canadians are spared higher drug prices, in large part because of price
controls. The Canadian government has established a "Patented Medicine Prices Review Board" to ensure drug prices are not
excessive. ...
[The article gives the Board's formula
for capping drug prices]
Every industrialized country has some form of price controls on patented
medications, except the United States. ... |
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Copyright © 2002 ABC News Internet Ventures.
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...
Unlike the knock-offs in other industries, the biomedical makeup of prescription drug generics is exactly the same
as their flashier counterparts -- the Food and Drug Administration accepts no lack-luster imitations.
In the United
States, patented products are given a 20-year market monopoly. New drugs are always protected by patents, and most have spent
seven years of that valuable patent protection in clinical trials before they are released on the market.
Most brand
names are able to keep generics off the pharmacy shelf for at least 13 years.
But Claritin
and many of their brand-name counterparts have enjoyed longer patent-lives than have prescriptions of the past. Twice the
time of drugs made 20 years ago, according to the National Institute for Health Care Management. ...
[This article lists a variety of tactics drug companies use to delay the
marketing of generic competitors, and FTC recommendations to speed them to market]
http://www.morningjournal.com/site/index.cfm?BRD=1699&dept_id=499256&newsid=4962742&PAG=461&rfi=9 |
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