Prescription imports could lower drug prices by 12-20%

From the Lexington (Ky.) Herald Leader:
The prices Americans pay for prescription drugs would fall — though not to the levels of Canada or Europe — if the government let consumers buy medications abroad, lawmakers were told yesterday.

For a decade, a bipartisan cadre of lawmakers has tried to give U.S. consumers legal access to drugs imported from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Europe. They say foreign prices can be half or a quarter what Americans pay for the same drugs.

But permitting those drugs to be imported would cut U.S. prices by only 12 percent to 20 percent, Stephen Schondelmeyer, a University of Minnesota pharmaceutical economist, told a Senate subcommittee yesterday. ...more