Jan. 5, 2024 – U.S. regulators on Friday accepted a plan to permit Florida to import medication, describing it as a step towards permitting the state to purchase medication immediately from Canada at a decrease price.

The FDA has given permission Florida's Company for Well being Care Administration's drug importation program. The state should then meet a number of obligations, together with demonstrating that the medication it needs to import have been examined for authenticity and compliance with FDA specs and requirements, amongst different issues, the company stated.

That is the primary approval of a state plan for the import of medicines. It marks a victory for lawmakers in each events, who for years have seen Canadian drug imports as a strategy to scale back U.S. pharmaceutical prices. Supporters of this idea embody each Democrats and the president Joe Biden and US Senator. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Republicans, corresponding to the previous president Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

However pharmaceutical teams within the US vowed to combat the plan.

In a press release Friday, drugmaker commerce group Pharmaceutical Analysis and Producers of America (PhRMA) stated it’s contemplating “all choices” to dam Florida's plan to import medication from Canada.

And it's unclear how effectively the state's plans for drug imports would work out in follow in the event that they go into impact.

Canadian officers and medical organizations have lengthy objected to the concept of ​​mass importation into the US. For instance, the Canadian Pharmacists Affiliation warned the FDA in 2020 through the Trump administration that such a diversion of its medication can be “devastating” to a rustic, worsening drug shortages and rising drug prices.

Many individuals within the US are already making journeys to Canada and Mexico in quest of decrease costs.

The FDA has been working for years on rules to permit the import of medicines on a broader scale. The company denied a request from New Hampshire in 2022, citing an absence of key data, together with particulars concerning the anticipated provider of the medication. Different states the place lawmakers have critically thought-about drug imports embody Colorado, Maine, New Mexico, Ohio and Vermont, in line with a December 2023 report from the Texas Well being and Human Providers Division.

In a press release Friday, FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, MD, stated his company will work with different states and with Native American tribes on drug import plans.

“These proposals should show that the packages would end in vital price financial savings for customers with out rising the danger of publicity to unsafe or ineffective drugs,” he stated in a press release.