WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has approved Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plan to import a limited set of brand drugs from Canada, paving the way for other states to follow suit and setting up a fight to take credit for the drug-price-lowering measure in the race for president.
The approval by the Food and Drug Administration is a breakthrough in a decades-long debate over whether to allow drug imports. Congress passed a law in 2003 to let wholesalers and pharmacists import Canadian drugs, but only if the FDA approved drug importation as safe, and until now the agency had refused to make that determination.
In November 2020, the Trump administration published a regulation that allows states to propose import plans. Florida was the first to do so. Other states, including Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin, have either submitted plans to import drugs or are planning to seek approval.
Florida plans to import drugs solely for public health insurance programs, including Medicaid. Medicaid already gets steep, guaranteed discounts on drugs, and state officials say they can get drugs even cheaper from Canada. The list of drugs that the state plans to import include treatments for HIV, mental health, and cancer.
The approval allows Florida to import drugs for two years.
However, many obstacles to importation remain. Canadian health officials don’t want Americans raiding their medicine cabinets, and they published a rule to thwart American import plans. Florida health secretary Jason Weida said last month he traveled to Canada’s embassy in Washington, where he emphasized that none of the drugs Florida plans to import are in short supply.
Also, drug companies are expected to challenge drug importation in court, which would raise all sorts of legal questions, and many drugmakers already prohibit drug distributors from allowing Canadian drugs to be shipped to the United States, according to The New York Times, which was first to report the FDA approval of Florida’s plan.
Then there’s the politics. Voters still care about high drug prices, and until Friday, Biden had owned that issue after Democrats passed a law, with zero Republican support, to let Medicare negotiate drug prices. That law also limits annual price increases, caps seniors’ monthly spending on insulin, and caps overall annual drug spending in Medicare Part D.
Instead of relying on Canada’s government price controls, Democrats created their own system of controlling prices.
But drug importation remains popular with voters, and Republican pollster Dan Judy expects drug prices to be part of the presidential campaign. Judy said that not approving Florida’s import plan would have given DeSantis and Trump a cudgel with which to hit Biden.
“It’s tricky,” he said.
That raises the question: who gets credit for drug importation, in Florida no less, where two of the GOP presidential candidates reside? Biden supports drug importation, and it’s his administration that approved it. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made it a top priority and even sued to ensure the Biden FDA didn’t ignore his proposal. And Trump is the one who made it all possible.
“You’re probably going to have to fight to take credit for it,” said Trump pollster John McLaughlin.