Hey, look. Some drugs are just too expensive to pay the US price on. If the choice is between buying a foreign drug import at reduced price or not buying the drug at all, I don't see the problem with importation.
Supposedly, the problem comes with substitution - when people buy the foreign versions of drugs they'd buy anyway.
I don't see this as a major problem. The market is just going through an arbitrage phase. There are plenty of foreign and university-based development programs. Buying cheaper drugs from Canada or anywhere else will hardly stop drug development in America or anywhere else. That's something a profiteer would say when he realizes his huge margins are coming under threat.
The government has already shot its credibility on this issue by warning that drugs from Canada might somehow be 'dangerous.' That's pretty funny, I remember living in the Yukon for a bit and taking some Canadian meds, and I'm still alive!
I'm not sure where the US drugs come from these days. Puerto Rico used to be a big production center, and it probably still is, due to the tax breaks for moving production there.
My guess is that much of the production of higher volume has moved off-shore. I think that India is becoming a big production location.
Lastly, the precursor chemicals are likely to be sourced off-shore, even if the last steps in synthesis are done in the US.