Maine targets Canadian online pharmacy

The Maine Board of Pharmacy has directed state attorneys to send a cease-and-desist letter to an online Canadian pharmacy that markets cheap Rx drugs.

According to a published report in the Portland Press Herald, the pharmacy board also asked the state Attorney General’s Office to investigate Canadadrugcenter.com, which advertises cheap medications in several Maine newspapers.

“We are pleased with the board’s decision. We think it was the right course of action,” Kenneth McCall, president of the Maine Pharmacy Association, told the newspaper.

An attorney representing Canadadrugcenter.com, John Myers, did not comment on the decision.

McCall said his investigation of Canadadrugcenter.com revealed that it is not a licensed pharmacy. He said the three medications he ordered from the company were manufactured in India, Turkey, and Mauritius.

“It was clear they were practicing without a license,” Joseph Bruno, chair of the Board of Pharmacy, told the newspaper. “We know this is going on everywhere. [FDA] shut down 1,700 of these operations just last year.”

Maine law does allow the purchase of prescription drugs from licensed pharmacies in Canada, the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand-in addition to drugs manufactured domestically.

Last year, state legislators approved a law allowing certain international pharmacies to do business in Maine so long as they met legal requirements in their own countries.

State pharmacy and other groups have tried unsuccessfully to overturn that law.