ABPI welcomes parallel trade warnings

The Social Market Foundation's report on parallel trade in medicines highlights several important issues relating to the safety of patients taking medicines, says the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI).

In particular, it shares the report's concerns that the practice of repackaging of imported medicines has the potential to put patient safety at risk. This was highlighted recently by a Parliamentary Answer given by the Minister of Health, Rosie Winterton, who said that there had been a number of compliance failures with imported packs of medicines.

The ABPI welcomes the report's proposal that pharmacists should advise patients when a parallel traded medicine is being offered to them and then give patients the choice of whether to accept or reject it.

The ABPI confirmed the report's findings that nearly one in five medicines dispensed by high street pharmacies are now parallel imports from abroad never intended for purchase in the UK. The ABPI also noted the findings that the financial savings to the NHS from parallel traded medicines were modest.

'The NHS gains little financially from the use of parallel imports. Moreover, UK patients can be confused by the medicines that they receive and there is a real danger of loss of integrity of the original product due to repackaging,' said Dr Trevor Jones, director general of the ABPI. 'The loss of revenue to the pharmaceutical industry in the UK threatens pharmaceutical manufacturing, research and jobs,' he said.