And does pharma have anything to fear?

The drug industry lobby has long opposed drug-importation ideas like the one described above, and the specter of such a policy has loomed over pharma stock prices for months. So why did yesterday’s revelation have almost no effect on the market?

Because, in the words of EvercoreISI analyst Umer Raffat, “this proposal isn’t quite that bombshell importation proposal that Street had feared.”

The proposal, Raffat notes, provides ample loopholes for drug companies to wriggle through. For one, it would only apply to drugs sold in Canada but manufactured in the U.S., inviting companies to simply switch up Canadian distribution to protect themselves. A second provision would allow drug companies to import their own drugs from foreign countries and sell them at a discount in the U.S., something almost no manufacturer would ever have incentive to do.

Add that to the fact that biologics are exempt from the rule, and the importation proposal looks like it would have negligible impact on the industry it’s meant to target.