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"In an ideal world, our leaders in
Washington, D.C., would find a way to give all Americans access to
better prescription drug prices on the world market," Blagojevich
wrote to the Vermont governor. "But in the meantime, states like
Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kansas have taken the initiative
to help our residents get the medications they need at prices they
can afford. Now the men and women of the Vermont Legislature have
taken action to give your residents access to affordable
medications; I urge you to sign Senate Bill 49 and make Vermont our
next partner in the I-SaveRx program."
Blagojevich launched I-SaveRx on
Oct. 4, 2004, and extended an invitation to other governors to join
the program. Currently, the program is available to the residents of
Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kansas.
Vermont's Senate Finance Committee
introduced Senate Bill 49 after the Food and Drug
Administration turned down the state's request to set up a pilot
program to import prescription drugs from countries like Canada.
Vermont's attorney general is currently in court trying to force the
FDA to approve the program.
Under the I-SaveRx program,
residents of participating states are able to purchase more than 120
name-brand, FDA-approved medications from more than 60 pharmacies in
Europe and Canada. The medications are types used to treat chronic
or long-term conditions, and numerous safeguards are built in to
protect patient safety. The program applies only to refills, giving
patients and doctors at least 30 days to make sure a medication is
effective before the patient can use the foreign, mail-order option.
Enrollees are required to complete a profile of their medical
history and must provide a physician-signed prescription before
ordering. Every prescription, along with medical history
information, is reviewed and approved by a network physician and
pharmacist in the country from which the medication is being
dispensed. Only prescription drugs made and approved for
distribution in the countries participating in the program can be
dispensed to I-SaveRx consumers, ensuring that drugs cannot be
imported from other countries outside the network and then dispensed
to I-SaveRx's American consumers.
Illinois first began exploring the
feasibility of drug importation in September of 2003, when the
governor commissioned a study on the pharmaceutical system in
Canada. In the spring of 2004, the governor expanded the review to
Europe as well. Public health and regulatory experts from the state
researched the pharmaceutical systems in Canada and Western Europe
to determine if the systems were safe and if Illinoisans could
realize significant savings by purchasing medications from foreign
sources. In August 2004, the governor's prescription drug advocates
released their final report indicating that, like Canada, the
European prescription drug system was well-regulated and was able to
provide the same medications available in the United States at much
lower prices.
Residents of Illinois, Wisconsin,
Missouri and Kansas can begin the enrollment process or get more
information by visiting
www.i-saverx.net or calling toll-free 1 (866) ISAVE-33 [1 (866) 472-8333].
The clearinghouse provides users with information on the list of
medications included in the program, prices in each of the three
countries, and enrollment forms and guidance.
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Text of the letter from Illinois
Gov. Blagojevich to Vermont Gov. Douglas:
Office of the Governor
Chicago, Illinois 60601
Rod Blagojevich
Governor
February 15, 2005
The Honorable James
Douglas
109 State Street, Pavilion
Montpelier, VT 05609
ear Governor Douglas,
You have an historic
opportunity to help the residents of Vermont gain access to safe,
affordable medications – an opportunity that could mean hundreds,
even thousands, of dollars in savings a year for some of your most
struggling families and senior citizens. I know you have already
been working hard to help your citizens afford their medications.
With the Vermont Legislature's approval today of Senate Bill 49, you
have an opportunity to build on that work by joining the I-SaveRx
prescription drug importation program. I urge you to sign this
important initiative and join Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri and
Kansas in giving our citizens access to safe medications at prices
they can afford.
I launched the I-SaveRx
program in October after more than a year of careful review of the
Canadian and European pharmaceutical systems. Based on our solid
research showing that Canada and Europe both have safe,
well-regulated systems, we reached out to the Food and Drug
Administration to try to set up a sanctioned prescription drug
importation pilot program. The FDA refused to work with us, so we
moved forward in designing and implementing our own program.
For years, millions of
Americans have been getting their prescription drugs from Canada and
other countries where prices are significantly lower. We designed
the I-SaveRx program to ensure that our residents can do so safely
with the assurance that their medications are coming from legitimate
pharmacies under the oversight of Illinois inspectors. We included a
number of additional safeguards to make sure participating
physicians and pharmacies know about the patients' medical
histories, and to protect consumers from counterfeit medicines. If
you have any questions about the safety or mechanics of the I-SaveRx
program, I am happy to provide you with any information that would
be helpful.
In an ideal world, our
leaders in Washington, D.C. would find a way to give all Americans
access to better prices on the world market. But in the meantime,
states like Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kansas have taken the
initiative to help our own residents get the medications they need
at prices they can afford. We hope Vermont will become our next
partner in the I-SaveRx program. I look forward to working with you
on this issue.
Respectfully,
Rod Blagojevich
Governor
[News release from the
governor's office]
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