The senators agreed Americans should be able to purchase cheaper drugs from other countries to help limit high drug prices, reports the Washington Examiner.
“You can walk in tomorrow to your pharmacy and the cost could be double or triple and there is nothing they can do about it,” said Sen. Sanders. “Pharmacists and distributors should be able to buy [Food and Drug Administration] approved medicine anywhere in the world. Then you will have international competition.”
While Sen. Cruz agreed on the need for drug re-importation, he also advocated for changes to the FDA, according to the report.
“The cost of getting a new drug approved is prohibitively expensive,” he said. “Just curing cancer would save $50 trillion across the globe and the FDA is a barrier to doing that.”
Sen. Cruz previously voted for Sen. Sanders’ proposed amendment to the recent budget resolution that would have allowed the U.S. to import cheaper drugs from Canada and other countries.
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