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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Percent a year. Zovirax, for example, got a 9 percent price bump in January 2018.But she had no good answers when ConsumerMojo asked her why Zovirax in Italy costs a fraction of its price in the United States. “I don’t know,” she said. “In Italy things are run by the government. They set prices for drugs differently. It isn’t an apples to apples comparison.”In fact, an Italian government agency does regulate the price of medication covered by its national health insurance program. But the price is set by the marketplace for non-covered drugs, and over-the-counter medications like Zovirax or acyclovir.Keller also couldn’t say why a topical cream for herpes or shingles outbreaks is sold over-the-counter in Italy while it requires a prescription in the United States. “In Italy the government decides,” she said. “Here the FDA decides what can be sold over the counter. The FDA says 5 percent acyclovir should be sold by prescription.”The FDA, as in Food and Drug Administration. In other words, the government decides here, too.We reached out to the FDA about why it designates acyclovir and Zovirax as prescription-only medications. FDA Press Officer Sandy Walsh said she couldn’t say, but wondered if Valeant had ever sought over-the-counter status for Zovirax. We’ve asked, and will let you know when we find out.My experience in Rome highlights the wacky, out-of-whack and unfair pricing system for medicine in the United States. Forget that there seems to be no good reason why American consumers can’t buy acyclovir without a prescription. That’s a symptom of something much larger.When we look at pricing, we have to consider the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in Congress and in the White House. When the Medicare drug benefit passed during the George W. Bush administration, the bill barred Medicare from using its huge market leverage to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices.Pharmaceutical companies hire lobbyists to help keep the prices high. Their lobbyists swarm in Washington like summer gnats. The industry deployed almost 1,200 of them in 2017 and spent almost $280 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org. That’s the main reason American drug prices are the highest in the world.President Trump campaigned on, and repeatedly picked up the populist mantra of lowering drug prices. But Kaiser Health News (KHN) reports that healthcare experts say Trump hasn’t come up with new ideas to cut drug costs. James Love, Executive Director
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