Drug store chains applaud price stabilization bill

AUGUSTA (AP) — Once his aides had straightened out a procedural snafu, Gov. John R. McKernan was able to put his signature on a bill aimed at stabilizing pharmaceutical drug prices.

Manufacturers said Monday they were disappointed. But chain drug stores hailed McKernan’s action, calling it a positive sign as other states consider similar bills.

“As the familiar phrase says, as Maine goes so goes the nation,” said Steve LaVerdiere, president and chief executive of the Maine-based LaVerdiere’s Super Drug Stores.

Ronald L. Ziegler, president of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, said the law should benefit Maine consumers who buy prescription drugs from community drug stores.

Ziegler said consumers will no longer have to “subsidize the artificially lower prices” charged by larger drug purchasers, such as hospital pharmacies, health maintenance organization pharmacies and mail order distribution services.

The new law will require drug manufacturers who sell large quantities in Maine to make their products available to all buyers for the same price as they give to their most favored customers.

Supporters said it will prevent manufacturers from cornering Maine’s prescription drug market.

But drug industry officials maintained the bill is poorly written, full of holes and had not been properly aired before the public.

“We don’t think the bill is good for the people of Maine,” Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association spokesman Mark Grayson said Monday.

Grayson acknowledged discounts are given to some buyers as a way to gain access to an increasingly competitive market.

McKernan was ready to sign the bill Friday when he discovered that Senate President Dennis L. Dutremble had not, as required, first signed the measure.

The attorney general’s office advised the governor against bypassing the president and signing the bill first. Dutremble, D-Biddeford, was not in the State House because the Legislature had closed its session just a day earlier.

Dutremble, who is running for the 1st District congressional nomination, was located in Portland, where he signed the bill McKernan’s aides had delivered to him, said McKernan spokesman Daniel Austin.