[e-drug] Can we standardise the pharmaceuticals' mark-up on cost? (9)

["Billy Futter" <B.Futter@ru.ac.za>]

E-DRUG: Can we standardise the pharmaceuticals' mark-up on cost? (9)
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dear E-druggers,

Comments thus far have been insightful and thought provoking. If 
only the politicians and other key decision makers could understand 
some of these complexities. 

My concern relates to the activities that take place at the end of the 
distribution channel - i.e.trying to find a standardized mark-up that 
would adequately reward:

1.  the commercial value added to ordering, storage, and distribution 
of complex, sensitive and highly dangerous products - medicine is 
not the same as Coke or furniture.

2.  the professional value added to the products - over the counter 
prescribing, educating clients, screening for medicine related 
problems etc.

These are two separate functions and, in my opinion, should be 
charged out in terms of the criteria that govern their use rather than 
an arbitrary single percentage to govern both.

cheers, 

Billy

Billy Futter
Associate Professor
Faculty of Pharmacy
Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 
South Africa
email B.Futter@ru.ac.za
phone 046 603 8494
fax  046 636 1205