Pfizer Official Rost in '60 Minutes' Interview Says He Supports Parallel Trading of Prescription Drugs

Main Category: Pharma Industry / Biotech Industry
Article Date: 07 Jun 2005 - 0:00 PDT

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Peter Rost, vice president of marketing for Pfizer, in an interview on CBS'... "60 Minutes" on Sunday supported the practice of parallel trading -- a "tightly regulated" system of importing drugs between countries that has been used in Europe for more than 20 years. Although pharmaceutical companies in Europe -- where prescription drugs on average cost about half as much as those in the United States -- sell identical drugs to different countries at different prices, parallel trading allows drugs to be purchased in countries where they are less expensive, such as Spain, and sold at a discount in countries where they are more expensive, such as Denmark, according to Rost. CBS reports that parallel traded drugs may only be purchased from a licensed pharmacy -- not over the Internet. In addition, parallel trading companies only alter the medication's external packaging and are regularly inspected by their country's health authorities. "Clearly this is a matter of profits. It's not necessarily a matter of safety. ... It would be derogatory to claim that Americans would not be able to handle reimportation when the rest of the educated world can do this," Rost said. The "60 Minutes" segment also includes comments from U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona; Eric Pfeiffer, owner of the Danish parallel trading company Paranova; Uta Porksen, a Danish pharmacist who sells parallel traded drugs; and John Theriault, vice president of global security for Pfizer (Simon, "60 Minutes," CBS, 6/5).

A transcript of the segment is available online. An excerpt of the segment is available online in RealPlayer.

Pfizer

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