Intermediate distribution of medicines and devices: 50 million deliveries, more than 500 million km travelled

These are the ‘hangars’ of medicines, parapharmaceuticals and medical devices that guarantee the daily and constant supply of Italian pharmacies. These are the Intermediate Distribution companies gathered in Federfarma Servizi, the abbreviation that exactly 3 years after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic takes stock of the distribution numbers again.

“Reviews in the afternoon”: that of intermediate distribution is the invisible mechanism behind the white coat of pharmacists, the one that allows you to find the drug in the pharmacy a few hours after the request.

Federfarma Servizi represents 18 distribution and service companies with approximately 3,500 direct member pharmacies. In the last three years, member companies have assisted pharmacies by delivering 2 billion and 700 million units across the country: 6 million vaccines, 25 million swabs and Covid tests, 175 million masks, as well as 2 billion drugs and 600 million parapharmaceuticals and medical devices.

During the pandemic, the Intermediate Distribution sector of companies worked tirelessly and without any reduction in the pace of the service – public and essential by law – to respond to the health emergency. Yet after three years, the sector is bent by expensive energy and fuel and by the increase in financial costs, which seriously jeopardize the sustainability of the system.

“The need for a drug or a device is immediate and as such the request must be satisfied in a few hours. As you can imagine, a medium-sized pharmacy cannot have all the references available. Furthermore, a large proportion of the drugs must ‘being stored at a controlled temperature and in cold rooms – explains Antonello Mirone, President of Federfarma Servizi – is an invisible but essential process, like the service we provide for the community: pharmacies have hundreds of products available, but they cannot store the entire handbook; therefore, they demand from our companies what they need”.

A work so capillary as to provide even more deliveries a day that reach even the smallest rural pharmacies, thanks to orders placed electronically. “If we want to use a metaphor – adds Mirone – we are the muscle that allows the arm to offer the product that citizens need for their health”.

“The pandemic emergency – continues the President of Federfarma Servizi – was also a pressure test for our employees, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes. Just think of finding masks, tampons and drugs for the Sars-Cov- 2 in addition to ordinary daily needs. In the three-year period 2020-2023 alone, the intermediate distributors affiliated with Federfarma Servizi made almost 50 million deliveries”.

Although the numbers of the pandemic are heading towards normalisation, the sector is now being further tested by the shortage of various drugs: due to the alteration of the international balance, some antibiotics and molecules active on the cardiovascular system are missing. Even at the international level, in fact, the supply chain suffers from the lack of raw materials and the increase in prices which add up to the increase in the price of the fuel necessary for lighting, automation and to keep the cooling systems on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

“It is time for our role to come out of the shadows: since 2010 we have been waiting for a reform of remuneration, which is even more urgent today in light of fuel and energy costs and the heavy increase in financial costs, otherwise the of the service, to the detriment of assistance to the health of the population – explains President Mirone, who recalls in this regard that Federfarma Servizi “set up a crisis unit in 2022 to deal with the emergency and has long requested an urgent meeting at the Minister of Health Schillaci”.

“We are already extremely late: if this emergency is not addressed in terms of political-institutional action, for our pharmacies ‘reviews in the afternoon’ – comments President Mirone – it risks turning into a distant memory”.