Egypt’s Pharmacists' Syndicate said that an agreement it signed on Friday designed to free the pharmaceuticals market from expired drugs within six months will be enforced “unconditionally”.
In a statement late Sunday, the syndicate said the agreement, which goes into effect starting October 17, was signed with the medical industry division at the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), as well as with companies and medical distributor associations.
All expired drugs are to be returned to companies without the need to provide purchase vouchers, provided they are included within their original packages, the syndicate said.
Based on the agreement, pharmaceutical companies are required to unconditionally receive expired drugs from pharmacies, recompensate them within six months and get rid of counterfeit products.
Syndicate Chairman Mohey Ebeid had estimated the volume of expired medicine at the market to be between LE600 million and LE1 billion. The syndicate has recently labelled the issue a “national security threat”, warning that expired drugs could be recycled and sold again to consumers, which poses a health danger.
Ebeid said in a press conference on Sunday that “the agreement preserves a pharmacist’s right to dispose of expired drugs, especially that the producer company is primarily responsible for marketing its products and ensuring a speedy sale.”
Ebeid warned that companies that fail to comply with the new policy will be “blacklisted”, and that medical distributors will be directed to “boycott” them.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
