Pharmacies

Hundreds of residents of small settlements in Bulgaria continue to be without access to medicines.

According to data from the Executive Medicines Agency, by 2021 the number of pharmacies in our country was 3,300, with a third of them concentrated in Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna.

Ljubljana – The National Assembly voted 47 in favour and 37 against on Wednesday to endorse a bill amending the pharmacy practice act which lifts the ban on vertical integration of pharmacies and drug wholesalers in cases when the wholesaler is incorporated by a public pharmacy or municipality.

All EU Member States, except Bulgaria and Romania have introduced an European system of traceability for counterfeiting medicinal products over 95 percent, Deyan Denev - chairman of the Bulgarian Organization for the Verification of Medicines said.

There is a risk that patients will be left without medications during the holidays, pharmacists have warned, quoted by bTV.

The reason is that the Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) has not paid the nearly BGN 70 million  to pharmacies for November and postponed the payment for next year.

A man from Syria is the organizer of the scheme for illegal export of medicines abroad. He is one of the detained during the operation of the GDBOP yesterday, the BNR announced, quoted by BGNES.

The criminal group has worked with doctors from many hospitals in the country, according to data from the investigators. Among them is a director of a medical establishment.

The Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union has unveiled an electronic map of pharmacies and chemist's shops in the country to help customers find their way to the nearest point of sale, bTV reported on Tuesday.

The tension in the payment dispute between the Turkish government and the country's pharmacies has risen, with the latter setting a March 31 deadline for selling drugs within the coverage of social security if their list of demands is not accepted. 

The general secretary of the Turkish Pharmacists' Association (TEB) has said pharmacies across the country will stop providing Syrian refugees with free medication unless concrete steps are taken to institute a new protocol, as pharmacies have not been paid for six months.

Romanian advertising companies risks losing over 50 million euro from expected earnings if drug companies are not allowed to advertise on TV and radio any longer.

The figures come from the International Advertising Association Romania, IAA.

The IAA on Wednesday protested against a new law that bans explicit ads for over-the-counter medicines.