Drug stores in Romania can become wholesalers

Drug stores will have the legal right to engage in the wholesale distribution of drugs, not only to sell them to retail clients, according to a bill approved yesterday by the Parliament, reports local Hotnews.ro. The former cabinet led by Dacian Ciolos had opposed this initiative, arguing that the measure could lead to lack of drugs on the market and even to the introduction of counterfeit drugs on the market. The current law provides that the companies authorized to distribute drugs to the population can’t engage in wholesale activities. Several Social Democrat MPs came up with a draft bill which provided that authorized drug retailers could also carry out wholesale operations. The bill’s authors argued that the current law has been causing serious problems to small and medium private investors active in the trade with pharma products, as they had needed to have separate companies for drug retail and drug wholesale activities. This situation has led to a “massive reduction in the number of small and medium drug distributors,” according to the MPs. editor@romania-insider.com