The sensible way to future-proof your pharmacy against medicine shortages

There’s already too much coronavirus ‘click-bait’ out there and we were initially reluctant to post another story on the subject, however the need to discuss the very real potential of increased medication shortages has prompted us to start tapping away at the keyboard…

Currently Australia imports almost all its medicine from overseas. We have an extremely small domestic manufacturing industry with a statistically immaterial market share. If supplies of overseas medicines cannot get through to Australia due to transportation issues, or if manufacture at the source is disrupted, what are the alternatives for pharmacies with in-need customers?

One thing the current, and at times sensationalist, media storm has highlighted is how potentially dangerous it is to put all your eggs in one basket. We’ve discovered that as much as 80% percent of the world’s face masks are produced in China and Taiwan – countries hit hardest by the COVID 19 pandemic – which very succinctly explains the current shortage all pharmacies are experiencing in stocking these basic personal-protective items.

While mass production of widely used products has obvious economic benefits, it’s important to remember how important diversity is, not just to eco-systems, but also economies. Healthy diversity of supply means that in times of shortage, the negative impact on businesses and consumers is lessened; the repercussions mitigated. For example when one supplier in Asia or Europe goes down, the shortfall can be made up by existing suppliers in South America or the U.S.

In the pharmaceutical world, compounding pharmacies provide a small, but vital, degree of diversity in medicine supply. When production of commercial medications goes down or supply is delayed, a compounding chemist can go back to the old-fashioned method of drug production – we can make it from scratch using the raw ingredients in our fully government-approved and purpose-built facilities.

At National Custom Compounding we operate a Partner Pharmacy program that provides a fast-tracked service to members during times of medicine shortage. Once a pharmacy is signed up and plugged into our online system they can start ordering medicines from us immediately – no delay and fast  delivery – 24 hour turnarounds in many cases.

Concerned about safety? Don’t be. National Custom Compounding strictly follows, and exceeds, all government mandated polices and procedures and we’ve come up with a few of our own to ensure every medication that leaves our facility is guaranteed safe.

To start the process of joining our Pharmacy Partner Program and avoid delays when the inevitable medicine shortages occur, contact National Custom Compounding on (07) 5530 6677 or [email protected]. Alternatively you can find more information on our website.