Unavailability of medicines in the distribution cycle and order quotas were at the center of the meeting which on Wednesday brought together the leaders of Federfarma and Federfarma Servizi, the association that represents intermediate distribution cooperatives. The interview served to paint a picture of a phenomenon that is not new but appears less and less sustainable. They confirm the alarm raised last week by Venetian pharmacies (see F33 of 19 January) and the one released yesterday by Federfarma Piemonte, which in a statement complains about serious difficulties in finding some specialties and invites AIFA to intervene. For the president of the national union, Annarosa Racca, it is instead necessary to take another path: «It's simple, pharmacies must be put in a position to dispense the medicines they need to citizens. In this we depend on the intermediary distributors, who in turn depend on the producers. We need everyone's cooperation. We have already scheduled a second meeting with Federfarma Servizi to continue discussions and we plan to invite Farmindustria to the table as well». The president of Federfarma Servizi, Paolo Tagliavini, takes the same line: «It happens more and more often that the manufacturing companies supply the distributors with quantities lower than the requests. It is clear that the goal is to discourage parallel exports (fueled by the price differences between the Italian market and the European markets, ed) but in this way we are not even able to satisfy the demand from pharmacies».
Pharmacist33 – 31 January 2011
