Some good news price wise

Cookie_Monster

Tesco opening pharmacies, substancially cheaper than pharmacies:

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/medicine-costs-to-tumble-in-price-war-2924777.html

THE first shots of a prescription medicines price war were fired last night.

Global grocery chain Tesco opened its first pharmacy outlet here -- to sell significantly cheaper medicines than other pharmacy chains.

The retail giant is now expected to introduce up to 15 pharmacies around the country over the next year following the opening of one in Naas, Co Kildare, yesterday.

A second outlet is to open in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, today, while another will open in Portlaoise later this month as part of the chain's move into the Irish pharmacy market.

The retailer plans to undercut traditional chemists and other pharmacy chains by taking smaller mark-ups on the drugs they sell.

For example, a month's supply of cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor will be priced at €48.12 in Tesco compared with €65.77 in Boots, while anti-hyperactivity drug Ritalin will cost €63.04 compared with €86.07 at Boots.

Tesco said it was charging a retail mark-up of 20pc and an inbuilt dispensing fee of €3.50 per item, as recommended by the HSE. The mark-ups are significantly less than those charged by other pharmacy chains.

An investigation by the Irish Independent found that pharmacists were imposing mark-ups of between 73pc and 354pc on the wholesale price of prescription drugs for private customers, resulting in medicine costing significantly more than in other EU countries.

About feckin time tbh, bring on the 20c painkillers

No doubt people will moan that it'll cost jobs in small pharmacies and boo hoo but it's good news for the consumer rather than the cartel for a change.

Hopefully Tesco will be able to also put pressure on the HSE to allow many more generic versions of drugs to be sold as well, further reducing prices.

Victor

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Hopefully Tesco will be able to also put pressure on the HSE to allow many more generic versions of drugs to be sold as well, further reducing prices.

Generic drugs are approved by the IMB, not the HSE. Generics can often cost more that post-patent proprietary drugs.

Maura74

It would be helpful for older residents in care home all over Ireland and in UK if GP stop dishing out to the owners of these home inappropriate drugs that is total unnecessary for their residents just to keep them sleeping in a chair all day long in these homes.

I have a close resident in one of these homes that charge the earth for keeping my relative locked in 24/7 with no outside areas for the resdients. There are up to 60 to 100 residents in these homes. No wonder older people are going mad in these places, as there is no escapee for them if they do not have a caring family that are willing to make sure that they are getting out of the home sometimes, as there is never enough staff to do this and if there is they will not bother with it doing it and no interations with residents there. The so called care homes can always give them a bill to keep them quiet all day long in a chair. No human right at all for these residents.

There are some more links but cannot find them just now.

http://news.patient.co.uk/newspaper.asp?ss=10&pc=4958

Cookie_Monster

Maura74 wrote: »

It would be helpful for older residents in care home all over Ireland and in UK if GP stop dishing out to the owners of these home inappropriate drugs that is total unnecessary for their residents just to keep them sleeping in a chair all day long in these homes.

I have a close resident in one of these homes that charge the earth for keeping my relative locked in 24/7 with no outside areas for the resdients. There are up to 60 to 100 residents in these homes. No wonder older people are going mad in these places, as there is no escapee for them if they do not have a caring family that are willing to make sure that they are getting out of the home sometimes, as there is never enough staff to do this and if there is they will not bother with it doing it and no interations with residents there. The so called care homes can always give them a bill to keep them quiet all day long in a chair. No human right at all for these residents.

There are some more links but cannot find them just now.

http://news.patient.co.uk/newspaper.asp?ss=10&pc=4958

What has this got to do with the topic at hand?

leggit

Mark ups of 350% on medicine is ridiculous!!!

Tesco all the way from now on!

Maura74

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

What has this got to do with the topic at hand?

the topic is about cost of drugs....

These drugs given out in care homes are very expensive and are totally unnecessary for residents. All these drugs do is help care home owners and not the residents.

The care owners do not employing enough staff or provide training for staff or have a decent secure outside space for residents. If these care home owners provide good secure outside area for residents to exercise or indeed to taken them outside of the home for walks and have enough staff to do provide this service then it would not be necessary to give residents in care homes these drugs that cost a vast amount of money to purchase from the drug companies and also very damaging for residents as well.

The UK government has stopped this in the care homes as it costs the NHS too much money (not becasue it was damaging residents) also they cannot afford to buy these drugs anymore thank god.

All that is needed for residents in vast amount of care homes in Ireland is for resident to get exwercise which is much more beneficial than the expensive drugs that are dished out in care home like smarties.

murphaph

Maura74 wrote: »

the topic is about cost of drugs....

These drugs given out in care homes are very expensive and are totally unnecessary for residents. All these drugs do is help care home owners and not the residents.

The care owners do not employing enough staff or provide training for staff or have a decent secure outside space for residents. If these care home owners provide good secure outside area for residents to exercise or indeed to taken them outside of the home for walks and have enough staff to do provide this service then it would not be necessary to give residents in care homes these drugs that cost a vast amount of money to purchase from the drug companies and also very damaging for residents as well.

The UK government has stopped this in the care homes as it costs the NHS too much money (not becasue it was damaging residents) also they cannot afford to buy these drugs anymore thank god.

All that is needed for residents in vast amount of care homes in Ireland is for resident to get exwercise which is much more beneficial than the expensive drugs that are dished out in care home like smarties.

...so very little to do with the cost of drugs in Irish pharmacies and the effect of Tesco competition thereupon

Cookie_Monster

Maura74 wrote: »

the topic is about cost of drugs....

These drugs given out in care homes are very expensive and are totally unnecessary for residents. All these drugs do is help care home owners and not the residents.

The care owners do not employing enough staff or provide training for staff or have a decent secure outside space for residents. If these care home owners provide good secure outside area for residents to exercise or indeed to taken them outside of the home for walks and have enough staff to do provide this service then it would not be necessary to give residents in care homes these drugs that cost a vast amount of money to purchase from the drug companies and also very damaging for residents as well.

The UK government has stopped this in the care homes as it costs the NHS too much money (not becasue it was damaging residents) also they cannot afford to buy these drugs anymore thank god.

All that is needed for residents in vast amount of care homes in Ireland is for resident to get exwercise which is much more beneficial than the expensive drugs that are dished out in care home like smarties.

it's still way off topic. do all these companies go to the local pharmacy for their drugs? Does anyone force you to send your parents there?

This thread is about retail pharmacy prices, if you want to go off on a tirade about rest homes please start your own thread.

Victor wrote:

Generic drugs are approved by the IMB, not the HSE. Generics can often cost more that post-patent proprietary drugs.

For the purposes of this thread I would lump both of those into the same category (generic / post-patent)

Funnily enough there's a tv add running over here at the moment for Avigra, the generic Viagra, same manufacturer, same colour, shape and ingredients. Viagra 90 NZD for 4, Avigra 70 NZD for 12.

Maura74

Sorry I obviously put my post in the wrong thread.

I feel it would be churlish if I did not reply to the last poster

Yes these care home managers do go to their local pharmacy for their expensive drugs. The manager of one of the care home owners told me that she was talking to the pharmacy and they were discussing how could care home managers without these drugs.

I would not send my parents to one of these places unless it was a last resort, which is what happened to my close relative ( not my parents) that suffers from Dementia. This is a memory problem and the last thing these people need is to be sat in a chair all day long in a seminoma state by the expensive drugs which is causing the country a fortune.

There are 44,000 people in Ireland suffering from this condition and increasing all the time it is estimated that in 20 years’ time there will be 104,000 affect in Ireland, big, big problem and big bucks for these drug companies.

http://www.alzheimer.ie/eng/Media-Centre/Facts-About-Dementia

Also, at present there are 750,000 people in the UK suffering from this condition also this condition affects young and old alike.

However, I have obviously put my concerns on a wrong thread and will not post on this thread anymore about this subject.

Nanazolie

leggit wrote: »

Mark ups of 350% on medicine is ridiculous!!!

Tesco all the way from now on!

The consumer in me who has been paying over the odds for medecines is leaping with expectation. The patient in me who likes to consult the chemist for advice and so on is worried that medecines will be dispensed like groceries.
The wise consumer in me says you have been caught before with Tesco policies, it will happen again: they drive the prices down, beat their competitors, and when they control the lion's share of the markets, they put the prices back up

SBWife

I love to see more competition in the marketplace...but Tesco will no doubt set out to aggressively destroy local competition then move prices up and reduce choice once the customer has no where else to purchase the product.

theseason

Yes and no... yes prices are too high and they should be reduced but it's not actually dealing with the main issue in the pharmacy market which is the government (which sets the cost price of all medicines for pharmacists and then only pays them 92% of that price in the community drug schemes) setting these prices too high, and this the vast majority of the money to the large pharma companies rather than the community pharmacies. For this reason the community pharmacies have to charge extra markup on the private prescriptions because of the loss on the community drug schemes...

Tesco will be ok because they will have a mostly private prescription market and the lower markup they apply won't have to subsidize many medical card patients. When the local community pharmacy closes and the medical card patients go to the tesco pharmacy the prices will go up.

Also the really high mark-ups are due to a dispensing fee being applied to low cost medications. This is a fee for the professional service provided by the pharmacist in assessing the appropriateness of the prescription. This will be the same in the tesco pharmacies!

Victor

theseason wrote: »

Yes and no... yes prices are too high and they should be reduced but it's not actually dealing with the main issue in the pharmacy market which is the government (which sets the cost price of all medicines for pharmacists and then only pays them 92% of that price in the community drug schemes) setting these prices too high, and this the vast majority of the money to the large pharma companies rather than the community pharmacies. For this reason the community pharmacies have to charge extra markup on the private prescriptions because of the loss on the community drug schemes...

Tesco will be ok because they will have a mostly private prescription market and the lower markup they apply won't have to subsidize many medical card patients. When the local community pharmacy closes and the medical card patients go to the tesco pharmacy the prices will go up.

Also the really high mark-ups are due to a dispensing fee being applied to low cost medications. This is a fee for the professional service provided by the pharmacist in assessing the appropriateness of the prescription. This will be the same in the tesco pharmacies!

A rather cynical and skewed analysis.

Where the government is paying for the medicines, it pays wholesale prices* less the discount that pharmacies receive plus a dispensing fee.

The government provides a huge amount of business to most pharmacies and without that business, msot would go bust. So saying that privately paid subscriptions subsidise government paid ones is rather misleading. the government is simply using its market power to get a better deal.


* Some of the wholesalers are owned by pharmacists.

n97 mini

I paid the doctor €50 to tell me something I already knew and write me a prescription for a €6 anti-biotic.

I think we need to get our priorities right.

n97 mini

We also need to put an end to the scenario whereby private patients are paying a far higher markup on prescription drugs to subsidise medical card prescriptions. A deal that was struck between the pharmacists and the FG govt in the 1990s.

Victor

n97 mini wrote: »

We also need to put an end to the scenario whereby private patients are paying a far higher markup on prescription drugs to subsidise medical card prescriptions. A deal that was struck between the pharmacists and the FG govt in the 1990s.

Did you bother to read my post? Are you comparing the government who might be spending €50m per year on drugs with people whole occassionally spend €10?

angeldelight

Where the government is paying for the medicines, it pays wholesale prices* less the discount that pharmacies receive plus a dispensing fee.

A small but really important distinction is that the government doesn't pay wholesale price - discount + fee for medical card patients. They pay wholesale price -8% + fee. Many pharmacies do not receive 8% discount from their wholesaler therefore those pharmacies are dispensing at a loss. Also even the old well established pharmacies receive no discount at all on certain products e.g. anything kept in the fridge so every one of those products is dispensed at a loss. Absolutely private patients subsidise these patients. It's not fair but that's how it works

n97 mini

Victor wrote: »

Did you bother to read my post?

Nope, as I zoned out.

The gist of the deal was to have private subsidise medical card, as angeldelight has explained above.

It may come as a surprise Victor but once drugs are being paid for on the drugs refund scheme for a private patient, there is yet another price. Again, this price is lower than what the private patient would pay for out of their own pocket, but not as low as medical card.

theseason

Victor wrote: »

Where the government is paying for the medicines, it pays wholesale prices* less the discount that pharmacies receive plus a dispensing fee.

The government provides a huge amount of business to most pharmacies and without that business, msot would go bust. So saying that privately paid subscriptions subsidise government paid ones is rather misleading. the government is simply using its market power to get a better deal.


* Some of the wholesalers are owned by pharmacists.

Apologies I meant to mention the dispensing fee and it was a poor omission. And to be fair to the government the dispensing fee it pays recognises the importance of the pharmacists role.

The issue I have is that it is the government and not the wholesalers that set the wholesale price not the wholesalers so the fact that some pharmacists own part of some of the wholesalers is irrelevant. This is why I feel that it is in this area that the government could take more action on the cost of medicines.

Finally the government only sends so much business the way of the pharmacists is because there is no-one else in a position to provide it. To ask medical card patients or other people under the community drug schemes to go to hospitals or other public run facilities which dispense medications would be completely out of the question and would also put a huge strain on those services. From that it is abusing it's market power to get this deal. (Which was implemented despite a valid contract being in place previous to it, and the pharmacists were forced to accept it - pharmacy strike 2009).

TomKehoe

Don't think Tesco are doing this to improve our standard of living. The London-based think tank New Economics Foundation (NEF), founded in 1986 with the aim of working for a "new model of wealth creation, based on equality, diversity and economic stability", has published a number of reports entitled Ghost Town Britain. They're available on their website www.new economics.org and I recommend you read them.

These reports provide a great analysis and illustration of the impact that mega-store supermarkets have had on the commercial and economic fabric of communities across the UK, leaving many towns and villages without any small independent retailers or locally circulating money. It's all been siphoned out by Tesco and other similar companies.

I for one won't be cheering Tesco on in their quest to do the same here by putting local butchers, bakers, grocers, opticians, dentists, pharmacies etc out of business. This is a greedy remorseless multibillion euro multinational corporation, pulling annual profits of €200-300 million out of Ireland. Tesco couldn't care less for real people - We're just economic units of spending power to them.

The people on here cheering for Tesco in their latest venture remind me of the French people who came out to welcome the Germans into Paris in 1940.

n97 mini

^ That is not a new thing, it happened in the US way before it happened in the UK.

If you want to keep business from drifting to out-of-town shopping mall or supermarkets, the only way to do it is ban out-of-down shopping malls and supermarkets.

That's anti-democratic, and while I am in favour of nice town centre, they have to evolve to keep up with changing times. For example, coffee shops, bars and restaurants are better suited to town centres.

Nanazolie

n97 mini wrote: »

^ That is not a new thing, it happened in the US way before it happened in the UK.

If you want to keep business from drifting to out-of-town shopping mall or supermarkets, the only way to do it is ban out-of-down shopping malls and supermarkets.

That's anti-democratic, and while I am in favour of nice town centre, they have to evolve to keep up with changing times. For example, coffee shops, bars and restaurants are better suited to town centres.

yes and no. How about people who don't drive? The elderly going to buy their loaf of bread and pint of milk after mass? Not everyone can shop in large supermarkets. I for one shop there because there is no alternative, we have no town centre, instead it's shopping centres left, right and centre. In the shopping centre is a butcher where I shopped until I got chicken that ended up in the bin it was so bad. The veg shop has very poor choice, and certainly no local products, I couldn't find ONE Irish apple. But I would rather shop in local shops, where you can get good deals, despite the general belief that they are much dearer. For instance, I buy fish only at the fish monger, because we are lucky enough to live close to Howth harbour where you have not only one but 6 fish shops. The prices there are far better than the supermarket's, and I get advice on how to cook it, and a few bits and pieces thrown in for being a loyal customer.
All said, supermarkets do suit some people, for instance families who can get everything under one roof, the nappies, food, toys and magazines. Plus it's true, the prices on most things (except fish and meat, I think) are generally better than in smaller shops, for obvious reasons.

I'm from a country where there is a mixed culture of town centres and very large superstores on the outskirt of towns. Generally, people find a balance by going to the supermakets for their weekly shopping, then buying their daily fresh goods from the small shops. There are also markets where you can get good deals on fruits, vegs, meat and fish.
We have massive supermarkets, so big they are 3 floors high, and you can buy anything from ham to a washing machine to holidays or car insurance. Exactly what Tesco is trying to achieve. However, the pharmacy business is very regulated and medecines can only be sold in chemists, even the humble paracetamol, but prices are also regulated and everything is much much cheaper than here. The pharmacies are heavily subsidized by the government and there can't be two chemists within a certain distance (can't remember exactly how far appart they have to be).

Bandana boy

Victor wrote: »

Generics can often cost more that post-patent proprietary drugs.

I would argue that this is possibly never true and certainly not "often"
Logic would dictate that a generic cannot compete with an original at a higher price

Some stats

70% of the worlds drugs taken are generic when looked at by volume
30% of the value of drugs taken are generic

psychward

TomKehoe wrote: »

Don't think Tesco are doing this to improve our standard of living. The London-based think tank New Economics Foundation (NEF), founded in 1986 with the aim of working for a "new model of wealth creation, based on equality, diversity and economic stability", has published a number of reports entitled Ghost Town Britain. They're available on their website www.new economics.org and I recommend you read them.

These reports provide a great analysis and illustration of the impact that mega-store supermarkets have had on the commercial and economic fabric of communities across the UK, leaving many towns and villages without any small independent retailers or locally circulating money. It's all been siphoned out by Tesco and other similar companies.

I for one won't be cheering Tesco on in their quest to do the same here by putting local butchers, bakers, grocers, opticians, dentists, pharmacies etc out of business. This is a greedy remorseless multibillion euro multinational corporation, pulling annual profits of €200-300 million out of Ireland. Tesco couldn't care less for real people - We're just economic units of spending power to them.

The people on here cheering for Tesco in their latest venture remind me of the French people who came out to welcome the Germans into Paris in 1940.

Theres no point having a fancy towncentre if nobody has money to spend there. The only people who will lose from this are Pharmacists who can't compete. Like everyone else in the private sector who have lost jobs by the hundreds of thousands or like taxi drivers who experience fierce competition they are not ''special'' or ''different'' and are not entitled to a hand out from the taxpayer who is entitled to value for money.
Those pharmacists who can compete will succeed while those who cannot should retrain and upskill even in another sector just like most of us private sector workers have to. If Tesco bumps up it's prices after squeezing old pharmacies out then new pharmacies can move in and compete once again.

texidub

Lower prices will be good for the people that matter: sick people who need medicine. End of.

I'm on the fence about big-chain versus small-time pharmacists (or businesses of any kind, as it happens). Big or small, these people are in it for the money. There's nothing more horrifying about being ripped off by a small timer than being ripped off a big timer (and nothing more romantic about being well treated by a Tesco worker than a local grocer).

Alibaba

Bring it on - Pharmacies have bled us dry for long enough. Rip off