IMS Health reports that one in seven UK pharmacies is exporting medicines.
December 2009
According to the revised data from market researcher IMS Health, 14 percent (one in seven) of UK pharmacies is involved with exporting medicines.
The company’s senior supplier relations and services manager, Paul Crowley presented the updated figure at the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists procurement and distribution interest group autumn symposium, held in Birmingham yesterday (12 November 2009).
Mr Crowley believes that his firm’s global overview provides it with insight into the issue of medicines export from the UK.
“When we see something is leaving this country, we are also seeing it arrive somewhere else.”
“We have been able to identify what we believe to be pharmacists and pharmacies engaging in trading activities,” he said.
“The latest number we believe to be dealing in some form of trading activity is around 14 per cent of UK pharmacies.” However, he mentioned that not all trading activity constituted exporting.
IMS provides data to manufacturers on its use of medicines in the UK, that it must “edit out” from these data the quantity of medicines that it believes are being exported, explained Mr Crowley. Usually, this is detectable by unexplained increases in the amount pharmacies order.
IMS has to edit out, on average, £79,000 worth of stock from each of the 583 independent pharmacies it believes to be “traders”, suggested Mr Crowley. IMS has to edit out £50,000 of stock on average, for each of the 1,288 multiples it believes are traders. Mr Crowley cited a transplant drug and an antidepressant as examples of medicines for which the supply to UK pharmacies suddenly doubled during the middle of 2008.
“There’s good reason as to why this happens. It’s not illegal,” Mr Crowley pointed out. “We encouraged trade in, from an NHS perspective . . . as a result, the mechanisms for trade out were already put in place.”
