Wholesalers, alarm on the economic sustainability of pharmaceutical distribution
Skyrocketing energy costs, fuel price increases and NHS remuneration at stake. Adf writes to the Government: "Urgent measures or there is the risk of not being able to supply pharmacies"
Aboutpharma – February 28, 2022
The drug distribution chain is in trouble. The surge in energy prices, the increases in fuel prices and the blockages of hauliers in recent days add up to the sustainability problems repeatedly reported by wholesalers, above all due to the under-remuneration of medicines reimbursed by the National Health Service (NHS) . Adf, the association of pharmaceutical distributors, has written to the government to ask for urgent measures.
Deliveries to pharmacies at risk
“The pandemic was not enough to make it more complicated to maintain the essential public service that drug distribution companies ensure to pharmacies and citizens, despite the under-remuneration that 
it is imposed by law”, comments the president of ADF, Walter Farris. “Today the situation is even more serious and the availability of medicines, vaccines, medical devices and health products in pharmacies to citizens is seriously endangered by the risks associated with external factors. The increase in energy and fuel costs, the blockages of supply and movement of goods and the unrest of hauliers – continues Farris – put at risk the regular supply of goods to our operators. There could be major repercussions on deliveries to pharmacies resulting in shortages of medicines that our distributors are doing their best to avoid."
Increasingly unsustainable costs
In some Regions they are reported major delays in the delivery of the goods to distributors and, warns the association, pharmacies could be left with some empty shelves. “Adf is active in monitoring the situation and reporting the most critical situations so that the appropriate corrective measures can be promptly taken. Our companies ensure the management of the products in air-conditioned rooms and at controlled temperatures. The surge in electricity and gas bills, together with the higher costs of special packaging for the 
cold chain, the cost of fuel for widespread and timely transport to pharmacies and parapharmacies located throughout the area, even in the most disadvantaged areas to reach, are having a dramatic impact on the economic sustainability of our services".
The appeal
Adf's appeal is addressed to the Government and in particular to the Ministers of Health and the Economy: "We ask to activate urgent and urgent cyclical and structural measures with interventions to safeguard our category and the entire drug supply chain - concludes Farris – and we are immediately ready for discussion and collaboration”.
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Ukraine, Farmindustria: “Costs will rise and there is the risk of shortages of medicines
Scaccabarozzi: "Dear heavy energy, for companies increases of 150% and now difficulties on packaging materials"
The world market "was in tension since before" the war. And therefore “the impact for us drug companies was already a fairly important reality. The increase in energy costs has had a heavy impact on companies and above all on companies that produce low-cost products”.
All of this "is leading, as we have already ascertained from a survey of companies, to risks of important shortcomings, which are not so much in the drugs themselves, but we see them above all in the packaging materials, storage, logistics. This is the concern, which could” in any case “lead to drug shortages”. To explain it is Massimo Scaccabarozzi, president of Farmindustria.
“We cannot retaliate against final consumers or even against states because drug prices are administered, controlled and negotiated – specifies – Therefore all part of the cost increase must be absorbed by the companies. But this was already something present regardless of the attack” in Ukraine “and the war”. However, observes Scaccabarozzi, "war can worsen this situation" that is taking place on a global level. "We we have had increases in the order of 150%. The impact” of the energy cost boom “we were also highlighting last month. All of this has had further increases” as an effect.
“And we begin to have problems of shortages and slowdowns not so much in the availability of active ingredients, but for example in packaging materials, ferrules, filters. The fear, concludes the number one of the national drug companies association, is that this conflict will accentuate this situation even more”.
