“Insight” into Drug Quality: Comparison of Simvastatin Tablets from the US and Canada Obtained via the Internet

Abstract

Results of this study suggest comparable quality assurance manufacturing standards for the US innovator product and the Canadian generic drug products tested. These findings have clinical, legal, and economic implications that should be addressed by policy makers to safeguard consumers who choose to purchase Canadian-manufactured drugs via the Internet.

Availability of prescription drugs for bipolar disorder at online pharmacies

“…A GAO study of 68 samples of 11 prescription drugs, including sertraline, found that the chemical compositions of all the Canadian samples were comparable to the FDA-approved product (GAO, 2004). In another study, generic simvastatin from Canada was not significantly different than the US brand product (Veronin et al, 2007). However, users of online pharmacies should be aware that even CIPA members may offer formulations that were not evaluated and approved by the FDA, such as the generic quetiapine XR.…”

Quality of Online Pharmacies and Websites Selling Prescription Drugs: A Systematic Review

“…Online pharmacy samples varied hugely in size, from 4 [83,94,95] to 5859 [10]. The sample selection had different inclusion criteria: many studies focused on online pharmacies selling numerous kinds of drugs, while others selected online pharmacies offering a single medication or 1 class; some selected only online pharmacies not asking for a prescription, and others only online pharmacies based in specific countries.…”

“…Online pharmacies were most frequently based in the United States in virtually all the studies that investigated samples that were not restricted geographically [10,57,60,61,62,66,73,84]. Other studies focused on online pharmacies based in specific countries, such as the United States [87,88,95], the United States and Europe [27], the United States and Canada [89], Canada [94], or Brazil [92]. Some researchers looked for where the websites were registered, and they found the United States to be the most frequent location of domain registration [10,67,68,84,93].…”

“…We found 13 studies [59,64-66,73,74,82,83,94,101-104] in which the researchers bought prescription drugs online and evaluated the actual dispatch and its characteristics, and the quality of the products received (Table 2). The response rate ranged from 30% [66] or over (39%) [74] to almost 100% [65,101] or 100% [59,73,74,102], except for the research by Cicero et al [64], who received nothing after ordering opioids, whereas his only order for tramadol was successful.…”

“…It should be noted that the various groups of researchers ordered and purchased different types of drugs from different samples of online pharmacies. Some were interested in specific categories of drugs [64,66,82,83,94,101,102,103], whereas others ordered several active ingredients [59,65,73,74,104]. Cicero and colleagues’ attempts to buy class II and III opioid analgesics did not result in their dispatch [64], but hormonal contraceptives and simvastatin were always delivered when ordered [83,94], despite a much lower number of total orders.…”