Galery

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30% drop in turnover of small neighbourhood pharmacies is registered until the summer of 2010 compared to the same period last year. This is the conclusion of the pharmacist Eleni Yanakopoulou. She has thirty-six years of experience and owns a pharmacy in the Athens district of Nea Chalcedon. The decline in turnover is due to two main factors according to her. One is the price reduction of some medicines after a ministerial decision adopted in the winter of 2010. The second reason is related to the economic situation in the country for which many consumers give up expensive medical cosmetics sold in pharmacies. There is also a third factor influencing the decline in turnover of pharmacies in the country and this is the removal of expensive drugs from the lists of medicines covered by health insurance funds.

All these factors combined with the new market liberalization hamper the survival of private pharmacies in the country. The latest figures provided by the Union of Greek pharmacists showed that one in every five pharmacies in the country is in difficulties to meet its obligations to creditors and suppliers. “We do not know what to expect because the conditions of the so-called liberalized market are not clarified yet,” says Mrs. Eleni. We know there are talks about removal of the minimum guaranteed profit, the pharmacist notes, but it is not a serious problem according to her. Either way its clear value in the total profits of the pharmacy is only 10% regardless of the announced 30%, added Eleni Yanakopoulou’s son who will soon take over the family pharmacy.
 
He said the opening of the pharmaceutical market will be of no serious help to the pharmacies in the country, as, he says, they are too much per capita already. Anybody can get authorization to open a pharmacy, competition will increase, but the prices of medicines will not fall, says the young pharmacist. Increasing the number of pharmacies will reduce their turnover, but most neighbourhood pharmacies with old traditions will retain their customers with which they have worked for years. People who come to the pharmacy are from the neighbourhood. In many cases there has been built a relationship of trust between the customer and the pharmacist who knows well the whole family, its medical history and needs, says the son of Mrs. Eleni.

The government of George Papandreou expects the opening of the market to increase state revenue by € 1.5 billion per year and  GDP by 13.5 percent in the long term. In summary, according to official information provided to the Ministry of Finance, this will lead to ten percent reduction in cost of transport, pharmaceutical, legal and engineering services as well as on the fuel market. The liberalization of the internal market in Greece includes the abolition of restrictions on the number and volume of the profits of pharmacies in the country. The operating law so far stipulates that there should be one pharmacy per 1500 residents and guarantees profit margin of around 30% of the turnover of each pharmacy.