There may be restrictions on competition in the distribution of over-the-counter medicines which the Antitrust must investigate. The Authority's intervention was solicited by the Minister of Economic Development, Pierluigi Bersani, who, in a letter to the Guarantor, asked to evaluate whether in the behavior of pharmacists, often also wholesalers for small and medium-sized businesses, "there are conditions that leave assume that competition is distorted, restricted or prevented". Non-prescription medicines are precisely those which, according to the Bersani law, can also be sold in shops other than pharmacies. The letter, according to what has been learned, was sent by Bersani a few days ago, after two complaints arrived at the ministry in which there were some difficulties in replenishing over-the-counter medicines by small and medium-sized businesses recently authorized, on the basis to the Bersani law, to sell drugs without a prescription. The complaints, underlined the minister, would reveal "the refusal or resistance on the part of some wholesalers" to supply small businesses. And similar reports also came from the national association of free pharmacists and from the national pharmacists-herbalist association. What gives rise to doubts about the transparency of the distribution chain is above all the double role of many pharmacists who are also wholesalers. A considerable market share of the intermediate distribution of medicines, Bersani points out, is in fact "held by companies owned by pharmacy owners" (according to Federfarma-servizi, 30.3% of the market is in the hands of the members of the association). In the light of this situation, in the letter the minister therefore asks the Authority led by Antonio Catricalà to evaluate the complaints and to verify whether, more generally, "there are conditions which suggest that competition is distorted, restricted or prevented".
From "National Movement of Free Pharmacists"
