Canadian Online Pharmacy Subject of Further FDA, Canadian Scrutiny

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) raided the headquarters of CanadaDrugs.com last week, Canada’s largest online pharmacy and the subject of past US FDA investigations. CBC News reports that RCMP is silent on why the online retailer was raided, but the company has had issues in the past.

In 2012, FDA accused CanadaDrugs.com of shipping counterfeit versions of Avastin^®, a cancer drug, to more than 100 oncologists in the US; at the time, the company claimed it did not know the drugs were fake. Last year, Health Canada, the country’s federal health department, temporarily suspended CanadaDrugs.com’s establishment license, prohibiting it from selling drugs to pharmacies. The suspension was issued based on Health Canada’s concerns that the online pharmacy was not ensuring proper conditions for the transportion of temperature-sensitive products.