Pharmacists don’t set drug prices

YOUR report headlined ‘Pharmacists have to swallow similar medicine as taxi drivers’ (Irish Examiner, November 17) contained several inaccuracies and was incorrect in its basic premise that pharmacists are uncompetitive and facing major regulatory liberalisation in the new year.

The contention that lack of competition causes high prescription prices is wrong. Medicine prices are set by agreement between the Government and the drug manufacturers and are based on a weighted average of the prices set in a number of other EU countries.

Pharmacists have no control over this pricing agreement. In fact, medicines prescribed for medical card patients (which constitute roughly 75% of all medicines supplied under the various State schemes) are provided at an economically unsustainable zero rate mark-up by pharmacies.