Chicago ? In I-SaveRx’s first three months, only about 1,900 people enrolled in the multistate program to import cheaper prescription drugs from Europe and Canada, but administrators are already looking at ways to expand.

Scott McKibbin, Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s point man for the program, says the administration is considering letting state employees and retirees participate, encouraging other states to join, and thinking about tapping additional countries as sources for the drugs.

The program now uses a Canada-based clearinghouse to connect residents of Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Wisconsin to pharmacies and wholesalers in Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom. It claims to save residents up to 50 percent on about 100 prescription drugs.

“We anticipate that it will build over time, and it has built over time both in the first state and every other state that has joined,” McKibbin told The Associated Press.

“At some point, do we have to think about other countries? Potentially,” he said. English-speaking countries, such as Australia or New Zealand, would be the easiest to work with since translation wouldn’t be a problem, he said.

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration opposes drug imports, saying it can’t ensure their safety, and it warns that drugs from a foreign pharmacy could have originated anywhere. The FDA has sent warnings to Blagojevich, but it hasn’t shut down I-SaveRx or other states’ Web sites that connect residents to pharmacies in Canada.

Successful model

McKibbin hopes Congress steps in. If lawmakers make it legal to let Americans buy drugs from Canada, he said, they could adopt many aspects of I-SaveRx for a national importation program.

“We are the model for what will happen for drug importation,” McKibbin said. “Clearly, we’ve already added three other states. Other states are in discussions with us at this point. And if you’re looking for a successful model as far as a safe and effective program, I haven’t found one yet that is more safe and effective than the one we’ve created.”

Currently, state employees fill their prescriptions through a local pharmacy and have a co-pay. If they were part of I-SaveRx, they could buy their prescription drugs through the program and be reimbursed by the state, McKibbin said.

The details of how such a program could work, however, and a decision on whether the state will try it are still under discussion, he said.

An FDA spokeswoman said no one at the agency was available to comment on I-SaveRx.

Last year, McKibbin and Ram Kamath, the state’s other prescription drug advocate, determined Illinois could save as much as $91 million a year if state employees and retirees bought drugs from Canada, which would violate federal law.

The FDA criticized the report, saying it inflated savings and wrongly assumed Canadian health authorities could guarantee the safety of drugs sent to the United States. When the state asked permission to set up a pilot program, the FDA refused.

McKibbin said I-SaveRx has several safety mechanisms. The pharmacies and wholesalers involved must be preapproved by Illinois inspectors, only refills are allowed, and a patient’s prescription must be reviewed by a doctor in the program.

Little cost to state

Michael Patton, executive director of the Illinois Pharmacists Assn., questioned how Illinois could consider adding other countries to I-SaveRx while the state was facing a budget crisis.

“Inherently, it drives up the added costs of the program for Illinois to be able to effectively monitor and oversee these various suppliers, wherever they may be,” he said. “How is it that we can afford to send inspectors all around the world inspecting pharmacies, wholesalers or whomever they’re using for their supply, when we barely have the adequate staff to enforce wholesalers and pharmacies in the state of Illinois?”

The state planned for that, McKibbin said. He said the cost of inspections was paid by those pharmacies.

McKibbin, 41, was hired last year to help the state find ways to save money on its prescription drug costs. A former health care consultant from Naperville, McKibbin has found his job focus shifting since Blagojevich began pushing for drug importation.

The state’s target audience for I-SaveRx is hard to pinpoint, he said. There are about 2.8 million people in Illinois without drug coverage, but it is hard to determine how many of those people are taking the drugs covered by I-SaveRx.

Several other programs are available to help Illinois residents buy prescriptions. One, “Rx for Illinois,” was started this fall by a group of health care advocacy groups to help residents determine whether they qualify for any of 275 U.S.-based assistance programs, and has already helped 50,000 people.

Blagojevich is still encouraged by the interest in I-SaveRx and says he plans to continue to touring the state to promote it.

“We’ve just got to keep getting the word out, letting people know that this is available to them,” Blagojevich said last week after two Illinois nursing associations endorsed the program. “I think when more and more people realize it’s the same medicine, made by the same companies, 100 commonly used, brand-name medicines except the price is a lot less, I think a lot more people are going to keep joining.”