Check your Pharmacist has an honest relationship with you the customer.

locum-motion

meditraitor wrote: »

A lot of wholesalers do not buy from the Irish manufacturers so the price is the same as before but they have to sell it at 40% discount plus their discount, and when dealing with pharmacists do not differentiate with discount whether to multiples or independent(a lot of independents are formed into buying groups already). I guarantee you any chemist could avail of these discounts if they shopped around.

You're failing to distinguish between wholesalers and parallel importers. Wholesalers do buy from the Irish manufacturers, or if the manufacturer doesn't have an Irish subsidiary/operation, from their official distributor.
Parallel importers source product from elsewhere in the EU, apply for a parallel marketing authorisation, repack/relabel as approriate etc.

meditraitor wrote: »

There are at least 5 PI companies out there that will offer between 15% and 50% discount across the range and this is at the -40% cost price(only 300 odd products) post patent products and in patent products(100s more).

If a pharmacist negotiates a discount from either one of these types of supplier, fair play to him/her. They'll usually have made a concession to get that, though, either for greater efficiency, shorter credit terms, direct debit settling of accounts etc.

meditraitor wrote: »

For some reason people think the pharmacists are taking the brunt of this price reduction, this is completely untrue, in some cases the stock they bought at previous higher prices was being returned to wholesalers before the prices reduction came in, and then they replenished this stock at the new price after the 1st. Most pharamists knew the reduction was coming for at least 6 weeks prior and this is plenty of time to reduce stock holding at no cost to themselves because they still charged the old price till the 1st.

Yes, pharmacists knew that there were negotiations ongoing, but could only guess as to which products were actually going to be reduced. Also, the wholesalers stopped accepting returns before the list was announced. I know pharmacists who did everything the could to reduce their stockholding in advance of the reductions, but yet still had €7,500 wiped off the value of their stock on the 1st Feb.
On previous occasions when there was similar reductions, what happened was that the manufacturer reduced the price to the wholesalers on the 1st of a month, wholesalers reduced their prices on the 1st of the following month, and the HSE reduced the payment to pharmacies on the 1st of the next month. This gave everyong a chance to clear out their more expensive stock. More importantly than that, it was negotiated fairly and squarely, not imposed by contemptuous diktat.

meditraitor wrote: »

Personally I think its not a big enough reduction in prices and if you look at the basket average across the countries (spain, greece denmark etc) the HSE used to instigate this reduction we are still very expensive.....

Yes, you're right.

meditraitor wrote: »

The public is paying over the odds for named drugs unnessearily because the industry wants it that way...This is not the pharmacists fault per say but they do have to at least take some of the blame for not forcing/advising the government to change the regs with regard to dispensing off patent named/generics instead of the big named brands.
There has to be a few altruistic pharmacists out there that can use the years of knowledge to advise the HSE on ways to improve the system while making savings, then the wholesalers and manufacturers will have to up their game. Its not always about business(for some)!!!! The public interest should be paramount, not just in terms of safety but also unnessesary cost being loaded onto them for drug that can and do cost much less across europe.

Pharmacists and the IPU have been advancing the generics and savings agenda for years. The Govt/DoHC/HSE don't want to listen.

meditraitor wrote: »

The HSE is probably the main culprit because of their lack of action or even insight into the industry they pretend to oversee.

I wish I could get Prof Drumm to come into a pharmacy with me for a day or a week and let him see what we actualy do. You're right, they haven't a fcuking clue!

liam84

locum-motion wrote: »

I wish I could get Prof Drumm to come into a pharmacy with me for a day or a week and let him see what we actualy do. You're right, they haven't a fcuking clue!

I thought as a moderator you were asking other people to keep their language civil.

locum-motion

liam84 wrote: »

I thought as a moderator you were asking other people to keep their language civil.

I said to moderate or self-censor your language.
FCUK is self censoring.
If you're gonna quote me, do it accurately please.

locum-motion

locum-motion wrote: »

Who's the OCA?

liam84 wrote: »

Ok, thanks. OCA - Consumer Affairs.

You mean the NCA - The National Consumer Agency.

liam84

locum-motion wrote: »

You mean the NCA - The National Consumer Agency.

Do I? Who gives a fcuk?