Home Drug Deliveries Becoming More Prolific
-resized.jpg "Pharmaceutical firms are making increasing use of direct home delivery services")
Pharmaceutical firms are making increasing use of direct home delivery services in order to avoid the additional costs generated by pharmacists and wholesalers, and therefore increase profit margins. According to one industry analyst – Healthcare Logistics’ Director of Business Development, Simon French – even now, the UK’s pharmaceutical delivery market is worth approximately £250 million; a figure growing at up to 15 per cent per annum.
As far as the National Health Service is concerned, one key benefit is the assistance that this provides drug firms with – enabling them to play a greater part in the chain of medicinal supply. However, there exists also a strong financial incentive for the NHS, in so much as drugs dispatched directly to patient’s front doors do not have VAT imposed. Consequently, local Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) can enjoy seeing their pharmaceutical treatment bills significantly reduced.
In respect of the VAT issue, the savings generated are really quite considerable. Take, for example, certain types of cancer or HIV drugs, whose base price can be up to £1,000 for a month’s worth of treatment. Furthermore, when patients are treated at home, the PCTs are also spared the expense of administering drugs in-house.
Through the use of courier service, home delivery of medicinal products has been in operation in the UK since about 2003. It has traditionally been used when the patient in question has a disease which needs frequent and repeated prescribing for - including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis or haemophilia. Now, however, a more widespread and less esoteric use of home delivery is developing within the pharmaceutical industry. One particular example of this is in respect of so-called “biologic” drugs – those manufactured from living biological ingredients. These require delivery to their patients within a certain and specific timeframe after they have been made – making it more practical to cut out the retailer standing between drug firm and recipient.
Among the pharmaceutical firms which are understood to now be adopting the home delivery framework for their products are Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, AstraZeneca and Sanofi-Aventis. Within the US, home delivery is fairly prolific, due in part to wisdom preached by health insurance firms – who highlight the financial benefits of home-based drug treatment, as opposed to in hospital.
Within many parts of Europe, home delivery of drugs and other medicinal products is prohibited. Added to this, within the UK, pharmacists are up in arms at the notion, given the negative effects on their trading set to result. Despite these twin factors, according to Mr French, “hundreds of thousands” of UK-based patients are thought to already be involved in the purchase of drugs direct. In his opinion, home delivery could already account for five per cent of trading within Pharmaceuticals as a whole.
Source - Pharmaceutical International’s Research and Development Analyst
