Tag:medicine

Calls for country of origin to be mandatory on pharmaceutical labelling

With the Covid pandemic shining the spotlight on gaps in Australia’s pharmaceutical supply chain, a logistics and economics think-tank is calling on the government to compel drug manufacturers to disclose the country of  origin of all active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) in their products. Logistics expert, John Blackburn, Chair of the Institute of Integrated Economics Research […]

What to say when customers try panic buying medication

Over the past few weeks almost every pharmacy in the country has had customers trying to panic buy medication. Most of these customers are well-meaning, but they’re worried. Worried that shipments of medicine from overseas will abruptly stop, or worried that all the other panic-buyers will have already emptied pharmacy shelves when next they present […]

Compounding and kids – how we can help

There’s no harder time in the life of a parent than when their child is sick. The overwhelming need to comfort them and ‘make it all go away’ is foremost in the mind of the worried Mum or Dad. We want them to get better – fast – and to make the remedy as painless […]

Why pharmacists are turning to compounders to save their bottom line

With medication shortages on the rise, community pharmacies in Australia are increasingly turning to specialist compounding chemists to help defray the time and expense associated with finding effective medication alternatives for their worried customers. According to a new survey from the Pharmaceutical Group of European Union, last year pharmacists from 82% of countries reported they […]

The Dutch are stockpiling medicines – should we do the same here?

The Dutch government yesterday announced it will begin to stockpile medicines in the face of expected shortages as well as spearhead a drive to restart wholesale manufacturing of drugs in Europe once again. Netherlands’ Minister for Medical Care, Bruno Bruins, made the announcement saying the government would start work on building up 5 months worth […]

Safety of compounded medications: Separating the myths from the facts

Occasionally we hear a story from overseas, usually the U.S., about a compounding pharmacy supplying unsafe and dangerous medicine to patients. The picture painted is one of a careless compounder (usually unshaven with a comically shifty look in his eyes)  brewing up concoctions of variable standards in an unhygienic and poorly controlled back room. The […]

Queensland’s compounded medicine sector envies NSW’s new pharmacy guidelines

Queensland’s compounding pharmacy sector is calling on that state’s Pharmacy Council to follow in the lead of The Pharmacy Council of New South Wales and introduce a comprehensive set of guidelines for Queensland’s compounders. Matthew Bellgrove from National Custom Compounding on the Gold Coast said Queenslanders deserved to have confidence in a pharmacy sector that […]

Getting your pet to take their medication the easy way

Administering medication to our pets is never an easy task. Our inability to break through the language barrier and communicate the importance of medication makes ‘pill-time’ a stressful time for humans and animals alike. They have no idea what we’re doing and we have no idea how to explain our decidedly odd behaviour to them. […]

When medicines run dry, what’s your back up plan?
drug shortages, medication

What do you do when your hospital pharmacy can’t fill a script? I don’t mean your computers have gone down, I mean supplies of the medication requested have run dry. Not just at your pharmacy and not just in your city or town, but right across the country. Do you have a back-up plan? The […]

Trump’s trade war with China could see medicine shortages worsen – here’s why

As the rhetoric ratchets up in the ongoing trade war between the United States and China, there arises the very real possibility that the medicines we prescribe, dispense and use every day here in Australia, could be the collateral damage. When Donald Trump introduced a 25 percent tariff on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports […]