E-drug: Parallel re-importation of drugs into USA (cont'd)
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Normally the parallel import would go the other way, i.e. from a
low-cost country (Mexico) to a high cost country (the US).
Although you might be correct in feeling you are being 'raped',
there is a chance the drugs are not imported from the US. Several
US manufacturers have factories in Puerto Rico because labour is
cheap and because the US government give incentives for
companies to produce there. These drugs will look the same and
will be exported worldwide. If you look closely, I think the
packaging in that case should say in small letters 'manufactured in
Puerto Rico'. At least I have seen that on drugs like Taxol here in
Norway. I would also assume that US companies have factories in
Mexico and/or other countries in Central and South America and
probably packaging and labelling would be the same as for the US
and Canadian market (except in Spanish for Spanish speaking
countries and Portuguese for Brazil?). Again, I expect the country of
origin to be stated on the packaging. Multinational companies have
many subsidiaries and it is often difficult to know how and where
the products travel. A product might also be part produced in
different places, i.e. intermediary products such as tablets in bulk or
even the ready mixed powder for tablets may travel from one
country to another.
It would be interesting if we could have some details of labelling
information (lanuage and country of origin).
Kirsten Myhr
Head of Eastern Region Drug Information Centre
RELIS Ost
Ulleval University Hospital
0407 Oslo, Norway
Tel.: +47 23 01 64 11(o) Fax: +47 23 01 64 10
+47 22 56 05 85 (h) mobile: +47 416 38 747
myhr@online.no (h), kirsten.myhr@relis.ulleval.no (o)
www.relis.no
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