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Berlin (dpa) - The pharmacies and family doctors continue to create delivery bottlenecks for important drugs.

Last year, 16.7 million packs for which there are discount agreements with the statutory health insurers were not available, according to an evaluation by the German Drug Testing Institute for the German Pharmacists' Association (DAV).

That was a little less than in 2019 with 18 million packages.

Those most affected by delivery problems were antihypertensive drugs, gastric acid blockers and pain relievers, among others.

While general practitioners describe delivery bottlenecks as an everyday problem, the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices emphasizes that alternative drugs are often available.

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Pharmacies have personnel and logistical effort every day in order to supply patients with equivalent replacement preparations if a certain drug from a manufacturer is not available, it said.

This has become more difficult during the pandemic, since repeated visits to the pharmacy should be avoided in order to reduce contacts.

The situation was somewhat defused by legal relief in the selection of substitute drugs because of the corona crisis.

"This pharmaceutical legroom when using medicines in stock should be preserved regardless of the pandemic," said DAV chairman Thomas Dittrich on Wednesday.

"There were delivery bottlenecks before Corona, and they will continue afterwards."

Medicines that are temporarily unavailable are an everyday problem for general practitioners, reports Hans-Michael Mühlenfeld, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Further Training in General Practitioners in the German Association of General Practitioners.

"On four out of five days a week we experience that certain drugs are not available."

A system of what is missing and why cannot be recognized.

"It feels like the situation has gotten worse in recent years."

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In some cases, doctors could switch to drugs with the same active ingredients, some tablets then tasted different from the patient's point of view or could be divided differently, says the doctor. In other cases, substances are also not available, then all that remains is to prescribe something similar. Mühlenfeld sees cost pressure in the healthcare system as a problem. Medical care cannot be solved in a market economy. However, he warns against dramatizing delivery bottlenecks: "There is no question of a large-scale undersupply of medicines in Germany."

The Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) does not see any reason for alarm in the event of delivery bottlenecks. The authority is currently observing around 190 delivery bottlenecks in around 100,000 approved drugs - a share of just under 0.2 percent. Among the temporarily scarce drugs are many for which there are a number of generic drugs with the same active ingredients. "A delivery bottleneck does not have to be a supply bottleneck at the same time, since other drugs are often available."

The Corona crisis temporarily exacerbated the problem, explained the BfArM.

In the past year, the number of reported delivery bottlenecks was at times significantly higher.

Therefore, countermeasures have been taken.

The institute called on pharmaceutical companies and wholesalers not to supply drugs beyond normal requirements in order to prevent excessive stocks.

At the moment, the BfArM's advisory board on delivery and supply bottlenecks assesses the situation as “overall stable”.

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There have been delivery bottlenecks for medicines for years. Trade unions see the complex supply chains in globalization as the cause: Many active ingredients for drugs are manufactured in China and India for reasons of cost. If there are manufacturing problems, contamination or even a standstill in production in the Far East, this can be reflected in Germany. The EU also wants to address the supply bottlenecks with its new drug strategy.

The union IG BCE called on politicians to work for increased drug production in Germany and Europe.

Others like the Association of the Chemical Industry (VCI) do not believe that production can be relocated back in the short term.

If you focus primarily on low prices, the production of generic drugs does not pay off, it said in an earlier statement.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210421-99-293328 / 3

List of the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices on delivery bottlenecks

Background of the institute on delivery bottlenecks

Communication ABDA