51–60 of 245 posts
I had never considered it-what makes a drug prescription vs OTC? Every substance has safety concerns(dose makes the poison), so with a lot of the financial gone, will the GLPs ever not require a prescription?
So would it be possible to buy the drug in Canada and ship to US?
AIUI, because they let the patent expire, the drug was not subject to price regulation by the government. So they could charge whatever. And during most of that time, they were still protected by 'data exclusivity' which means that any generic producer could not get approved without doing their own clinical trials, until 8 years had passed. So they gave up some period of exclusivity in return for being able to charge…
Thanks, can you point to where you found this info?
I am not an expert.
Here's one about the price control on patented drugs: https://www.torys.com/our-latest-thinking/publications/2024/...
I thought I had a decent handle on patent law, but maybe I'm missing something here. Yes, the patent won't be valid for Canada, but you can't import a product into the US which would infringe on a US patent. So, though there may be a small amount that would slip through the cracks, it isn't as if anyone in the US can now manufacture Semaglutide and distribute it. Canada is such a small market, that many companies don…
Don't worry about the law think about the practical impact. It's now completely legal to ignore the patent in Canada so the price in Canada will plummet. Canadian pharmacies can legally sell it and Americans (and all other foreigners for that matter) traveling there can legally buy it. Unlike the criminal law, Novo nordisk would have to go after every single person individually and make the case that they are infring…
Well, about that... Aren't all variants of medications like these prescription-only? And in Canada you can't fill a foreign prescription without having a local doctor sign off on it, as far as I know.
Many seniors get cheaper medicine from Canada. That might become harder https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/18/deminimis...
No paywall: https://archive.ph/nT0Jl
Oh well, at least we in Canada get more generic drug variants. Thanks!
AIUI, because they let the patent expire, the drug was not subject to price regulation by the government. So they could charge whatever. And during most of that time, they were still protected by 'data exclusivity' which means that any generic producer could not get approved without doing their own clinical trials, until 8 years had passed. So they gave up some period of exclusivity in return for being able to charge…
Thanks, can you point to where you found this info?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always wonder-in this case of such an epic company fuck up, does anyone ever get fired? Or is responsibility so diffuse that nobody is ultimately responsible? Pharma companies are really nothing more than holders of time-limited, expensive, exclusive IP. The number one priority should be to maintain those protections as long as possible. How could any patent be allowed to lapse, even if there was limited commercial…
Or is responsibility so diffuse that nobody is ultimately responsible? That's exactly how things like this happen. No one has responsibility, thinking it's someone else's problem, so no one bothers to do the needful.
Or it’s in someone’s political interest to let the fuckup play out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're going to go for a two year supply, it's probably better to just risk shipping it. You're not going to come home with that much without it getting confiscated, and you're way more likely to be searched individually than a typical package is.
With de minimis for US-bound packages suspended I suspect way more packages are inspected than used to be.
But a smaller fraction.
If you’re paranoid, route it via the UAE. All my European and Indian shippers are doing that for tariff-free pricing. (Personal stuff. I’ll pay a customs duty if I get it, of course.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not an American but there’s only very limited circumstances you can travel across the border home to the USA with foreign prescription drugs, right? And this scenario wouldn’t cover it. Unless you just meant they won’t get caught or maybe not fined or confiscated in practice? :)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45638316