Mike Isles speaking at the European Association of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Congress (Prague 24-27 June 2017) joined a panel of experts on the subject “Global Health – Access to medicines – ensuring the supply chain for access to safe and effective medicines”. Mike detailed the two very different supply chains for the distribution of medicines. These being the relatively secure legitimate supply from manufacturer to wholesaler to pharmacist to patient compared to the illegitimate supply chain. This distribution route chooses the Internet to host illegally operating websites selling medicines. At any given time there are over 30,000 illegally operating websites in Europe, Mike pointed out that increased law enforcement initiatives are paramount coupled with tackling the demand side.
Tackling the demand side Mike says …”is all about educating the public – that is you and I – about the risk of buying medicines on line. Public awareness campaigns in each country like the ones that ASOP Global and ASOP EU are running will be critical if we are to address the demand side dynamic. Initiatives such as the NABP secure top level domain name .pharmacy where a website with this address will be a genuine pharmacist is a very complementary initiative to the EU’s Common Logo which must appear on every webpage selling a medicine.”
For an inforamtive resume of the topics discussed by the panel please click here to see a short video.
