Saturday, August 28, 2004

From the Boston Globe:
Drug firms sued over prices
Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker, and 14 other pharmaceutical companies were accused by a group of California drugstores in a lawsuit of conspiring to keep lower-priced medicines from Canada out of the US market.

The lawsuit filed here by 14 independent pharmacies says the manufacturers use anticompetitive tactics to inflate drug prices. The pharmacies claim they pay four times more for prescription drugs than retailers in other countries.

Some drug makers limit sales to Canadian pharmacies as more than 1 million Americans use the Internet to order drugs from Canada, where medicines are as much as 77 percent cheaper. Pfizer, Eli Lilly & Co., and AstraZeneca PLC are reducing sales to Canada, in some cases cutting off retailers, to limit supplies available to send to US customers.

No comments: