06 November 2007

UniChem Provides Support on Pseudoephedrine

Following the recent changes by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to restrict the sales of pharmacy medicines containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine. UniChem has published a user-friendly Q+A guide for its pharmacy customers to highlight the changes to regulation, and to advise pharmacists and support staff on sales of products containing these ingredients.

The content of the Q+A handout has been produced by the UniChem Professional Services and Ethical Buying teams. The guide is available to customers via the UniChem customer facing and commercial teams. The document provides simple, straightforward guidance by answering the most common questions on the sales of pharmacy medicines containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine. The Q+A will also be published in the next issue of UniChem’s customer magazine ‘The Business’.

Terry Scicluna, Managing Director of UniChem, comments: “It is important that pharmacists do not to forget the initial reasoning behind the MHRA review of these products, and remember that we potentially faced the prospect of all medicines containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine being changed to POM status. There is still a real chance that this might happen in the future, and it is essential that pharmacists ensure that the supply of pharmacy medicines containing pseudoephedrine is controlled within the new guidelines.

“However, as the demands on pharmacists continue to increase, and in order to help UniChem’s customers to easily manage these new regulations alongside their many other responsibilities, we wanted to provide some straightforward, easy-to-follow information, to allow pharmacists to supervise sales of these products in a way that could be managed simply yet effectively.”

For more information please contact:
Sanam Conway, Communications Executive, 0208 974 4045
Helena Bate, Communications Manager, 0208 974 4044