Maine-Canada Venture to Cut Drug Costs

      BANGOR, Maine, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- While the presidential candidates wrangle over prescription drug costs, Maine has come up with an innovative plan to offer Medicare patients lower prices.

      Eastern Maine Health Care, the parent company of five Maine hospitals, has announced a joint venture with a yet-unnamed pharmacy across the border in New Brunswick, Canada, to import up to 400 U.S. manufactured drugs to Maine for Medicare patients.

      The drugs would cost less than a third of current U.S. prices, sparing many residents the bus trip across the border to fill their prescriptions.

      The federal drug importation bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last week by 340-75 and by the Senate Wednesday 86-8 should guarantee Maine''s bill would encounter no legal impediments, officials say.

      But the congressional action is expected to take to least two years before the Food and Drug Administration can complete writing the regulations. Maine''s innovative approach could be in operation as early as December, according to EMH.

      "We clearly will provide reduced prices for pharmaceuticals to Mainers," Norman Ledwin, EMH''s chief executive officer, said in Thursday''s Bangor Daily News. "We believe we have met all the statues and requirements to begin this program."

      Under the program Maine doctors will get Canadian medical licenses to write the prescriptions and patients would receive their drugs by mail or courier from the New Brunswick pharmacy.

      The plan will begin with up to 12 physicians working out of two company subsidiaries, Norumbega Medical in Bangor and Horizons Health Services in Presque Isle.

      EMH will concentrate on maintenance drugs. It envisions patients paying the Canadian $70 price rather than the U.S. price of $144 for Lipitor, the cholesterol-reducing drug; about $100 rather than $200 for tamoxifen, the cancer-fighting drug, and $11 versus $39 for Premarin, the hormone drug to treat cancer.

      Maine took the lead this year among the states in helping to lower prescription drug costs for its residents. Gov. Angus King on May 12 signed a pioneering law asking drug companies to voluntarily reduce the costs of prescription drugs under the threat of price controls.

      The goal is to obtain immediate price cuts of up to 15 percent and as much as 50 percent by the end of 2001.

      The program covers some 325,000 Mainers who lack insurance and another 200,000 on Medicare. To bring pressure on the drug industry, the law stipulates that price controls will be imposed on offenders after July 1, 2003.

      The pharmaceutical industry, representing some 100 companies, has vociferously challenged the law as unconstitutional and was scheduled to seek a court injunction Thursday to prevent that law from taking effect next January.

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