Byron Dorgan: “These are bottles of a drug called Lipitor. This, I believe, is one of the fastest selling, most popular drugs in the…”

“These are bottles of a drug called Lipitor. This, I believe, is one of the fastest selling, most popular drugs in the United States. It is used for the lowering of cholesterol. By all accounts, it is a very successful drug and it sells rapidly and is prescribed often. As you can see, these two bottles of Lipitor are identical. These are both bottles that have 10 milligram tablets of Lipitor in them. They are made in the same plant. These are FDA-approved drugs made in an FDA-approved plant. The same pill is put in the same bottle made by the same company. There is one difference. This one is sold to Canadians at $1.01 per tablet. This one is sold to Americans at $1.81 per tablet. It is the same pill, the same bottle, same company, FDA approved, but nearly twice as much money is charged to the American consumer than the Canadian consumer. I could have used Germany as an example, Italy, England, France, Spain--almost anyone. I could have used almost any country and come up with nearly the same result. In Europe, they have something called parallel trading. If you are in Spain and want to buy a drug from Germany, there is no problem, you go through the parallel trading system. If you are in Italy and want to buy a drug from France, no problem, parallel trading. In this country we are told by FDA and others that there would be a huge safety problem if we purchased drugs from Canada--total nonsense. The Canadians have virtually the same chain of custody as we do.”