[약업신문]High voice for standardization of pharmaceutical product return standards

There is a growing voice that different pharmaceutical companies need to standardize different standards for returning drugs.

Recently, as a result of examining the criteria for the acceptance of unused stock drugs by pharmaceutical companies through drug distribution companies, various return policies such as non-returnable products, differential settlement based on serial number management, and deduction by annual purchase amount, are being implemented.

Company B cannot return products after 1 year of use and Company M and Company K and 6 months of use, but Company G, Company K, and Company W can only return products that are less than 6 months of use or products that have been used. Is giving you confusion.

Other companies B, K, and T have a policy that they cannot return products with a validity period of less than 6 months, and companies A and B apply different standards for each pharmaceutical company, such as accepting returns only when a pharmacy makes a claim to the pharmaceutical company. It is a situation.

Company S and Company R receive returns only for products that have passed the expiration date, but each returns twice a year or accepts returns within 0.5% of the purchase amount.

In addition, it was found that Company J is accepting returns within the limit of 50 million won per month, Company S is limited to 30 million won per month, Company H is limited to 25 million won per month, Company N and T are up to 20 million won per month, and Company B and P are accepting returns within the limit of 2 million won per month.

As such, it is pointed out that because the standard of return for each pharmaceutical company is different, unnecessary tasks are added in the process of returning goods by pharmacies and drug distribution companies.

An official of a drug distribution company said, “There are a lot of work while carrying out returns because the standards for return are different for each pharmaceutical company. Some multinational companies are refusing to return products,” he complained of difficulties.

Multinational pharmaceutical companies that were unable to return medicines were G and M, and T was also found to be rarely returning products.

In addition, there were many pharmaceutical companies that refused to return products based on shipment based on the serial number, which is the basis of shipment, or deducted a certain portion of the product. However, taking into account the situation where the serial number system is not implemented in pharmacies and hospitals, it is expected that the handling of unused inventory drugs whose serial numbers do not match is expected to continue to be a problem.

When a pharmacy or hospital asks for a return, the drug distribution company receives the return, but the pharmaceutical companies are in a situation where they are refusing to return the product with regulations.

To solve this problem, on February 17, three organizations in the pharmaceutical industry, including the Korea Pharmaceutical Association, the Korea Pharmaceutical Bio Association, and the Korea Pharmaceutical Distribution Association, signed a business agreement for mutual cooperation to improve the distribution structure of medicines such as handling the return of unused drugs, and promote win-win growth in the future. It is a situation that is attracting attention because it has decided to seek.