Content about Food and Drug Administration

US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) issued a warning on a counterfeit cancer drug sold in USA by three distributors. FDA’s safety alert issued on 3rd April claims “FDA lab tests have confirmed that a counterfeit version of Roche’s Altuzan 400mg/16ml (bevacizumab),an injectable cancer medication, found in the U.S. contains no active ingredient.” Altuzan is the brand name used in Turkey for Avastin, the widely used cancer drug.

It is no secret that generic medications are almost 40-50% less than their branded versions, and this is why approval of generics faster is a priority to the Canadian authorities as Health Canada which is an equivalent of the FDA in the US. Once a generic drug is approved, most Canadian pharmacies incorporate them to their product portfolio rather quickly, so that the customers can benefit from low priced products. Most of online Canada pharmacies sell both brand as well as generic products that are available and approved by Canadian authorities.

The fact that prices of medicines in USA are exorbitantly higher than the prices in other countries is no more a secret. There are various reasons cited by the experts but these justifications do not really stick. After all how can the same branded drug, supplied by the same pharmaceutical manufacturing company be poles apart in prices in US and Canada?