Greg Ganske: “I would point out that on the House appropriations bill, we have passed an amendment in a bipartisan fashion, 375-12, to…”

“I would point out that on the House appropriations bill, we have passed an amendment in a bipartisan fashion, 375-12, to allow the reimportation of prescription drugs back into the United States. And on the Senate side, the vote was about 75 for allowing reimportation. Here is where we are on the specifics of the legislation as I understand it today in talks that are ongoing with the White House and between congressional leadership and, that is, that there is an issue on labeling. The prescription drug companies want to try to get a provision into this bill that would say that if the label is at all different, then you cannot bring the drug back in. Those labels frequently will be written in the foreign language of the country that they are in, not necessarily the instructions inside the box, the instructions inside the box could easily be just like the instructions inside the box of a DVD that you would buy. In other words, they would be written in English, German, Spanish, French, so that you would have the same information, but the drug companies are trying to prevent the reimportation by saying that if there is anything different on the label, then it cannot come back in. We need to make sure that that type of loophole is not allowed into it. Then the drug companies are looking at ways where they can write contracts with wholesalers and retailers overseas, restrictive contracts that would say that they cannot send those drugs back into the United States.”