Over 12 million prescription drugs produced

Tailored: 12 million prescriptions made for patients

04/12/2015

The public pharmacies in Germany produced twelve million prescriptions for insured persons of the statutory health insurance (GKV) last year. Such prescription drugs are „a necessary addition to industrially manufactured medicines“, said the president of the Federal Chamber of Pharmacists.

„In many cases irreplaceable“
In 2014, public pharmacies in Germany produced around 12 million prescriptions for insured persons of the statutory health insurance (GKV). This was determined by the German Drug Testing Institute e.V. (DAPI) through the evaluation of regulations, as the Federal Association of German Pharmacists Associations (ABDA) has now announced. „All in all, the number is likely to be even higher, because recipes for private individuals or for direct demand are not recorded at all. This shows that prescription medicines are and will remain a necessary supplement to industrially manufactured medicines“, explained Dr. Andreas Kiefer, Chief Executive Officer of DAPI and President of the Federal Chamber of Pharmacists (BAK) in a statement. „Prescription drugs are irreplaceable in many cases, for example when a child needs a drug in a dose for which there is no industrially manufactured drug.“

Each pharmacy can produce individual recipes
According to the information, the majority of the 12 million tailor-made medicines for legally insured persons last year were accounted for by so-called „general formulas“ (7.5 million medicines), for example capsules or ointments. All pharmacies can produce such general recipes individually for the patient. The basis is the prescription of a doctor. However, so-called special formulas such as for heroin replacement or cancer therapy and also the parenteral (bypassing the intestine) diet are delimited from it. In addition, for special formulas, it can be assumed that the number of formulations actually produced exceeds the values ​​recorded.

Requirements have increased in recent years
In recent years, they have increased requirements for the production of prescription drugs. For example, since 2012, it has been prescribed, among other things, that the pharmacist must check and document the plausibility of the prescription for each individual prescription. In 2013, the number of prescription medicines produced exceeded 12 million. In the year before, there were even over 13 million prescriptions and in 2009, public pharmacies produced more than 16 million prescriptions. (Ad)