DeSantis sues Biden administration over Canadian drug importation program

Florida was the primary state within the nation to use for the Canadian drug importation program in November 2020. DeSantis had personally lobbied former President Donald Trump to present remaining authorization to the plan that 12 months. It would save Florida residents an estimated $150 million in prescription drug prices.

President Joe Biden additionally issued an government order in July 2021 that directed the FDA to implement the program, and staffers with the company informed well being officers from numerous states, together with Florida, that extra particulars could be forthcoming. Officials with the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration mentioned the FDA by no means supplied additional data.

FDA Commissioner Robert Califf additionally declined to supply a timeline for Florida’s utility when he was requested about it a month later.

Simone Marstiller, secretary for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, informed the FDA in March that Florida had already waited 500 days for its utility to be permitted. She mentioned on Wednesday that one other 100 days have passed by and not using a phrase.

“This has been sitting on someone’s desk for 600 days,” Marstiller mentioned. “This is not what government is supposed to do.”

The White House and the FDA didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

DeSantis mentioned he had hoped Biden’s help would lead the FDA to lastly approve the state’s utility. But with little subsequent motion from the federal company, he mentioned the state was compelled to sue.

“I didn’t anticipate getting to this point where even the administration says they support it and then we just toil for months and months,” he mentioned.

The Florida governor satisfied the state Legislature to approve roughly $40 million to rent a Texas-based agency, LifeScience Logistics, to construct the infrastructure required to run the program, which incorporates the massive, empty Lakeland warehouse the place DeSantis held Wednesday’s information convention.

“All of this stuff is ready to go,” DeSantis mentioned. “It’s turnkey.”

The state’s Canadian prescription importation program is meant to reap taxpayer financial savings by buying cheaper medicine for state-subsidized well being care applications, together with Medicaid. Marstiller mentioned her company is already packing extra scrutiny into an upcoming multi-billion greenback contract procurement course of with the well being insurers who will present protection for a lot of the state’s 5.4 million Medicaid enrollees.

“We’re not going to pay these prices to the pharmaceutical companies,” Marstiller mentioned. “We’re done.”