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Bristol-Myers Squibb change distribution arrangements

AAH and Alliance get contract

Will the last pharmaceutical manufacturer leaving the wholesaler warehouse please turn off all the lights

Dr Allan Tennant reports

23rd of June 2009

 

Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals (including Mead Johnson Nutritionals) has announced that it will use just two wholesalers for most of its products from 1 August 2009: AAH Pharmaceuticals Limited and Alliance Healthcare (Distribution) Limited have been selected to distribute the majority of their medicines to community pharmacies and dispensing doctors with effect from 1 August 2009. Northern Ireland is unaffected by these changes. BMS say that these changes are neither a DTP or agency scheme.

 

Bristol-Myers Squibb will continue to supply a few selected products direct to dispensing customers and homecare companies using its own logistical arrangements.

These products are aztreonam, etoposide phosphate, abatacept, atazanavir, dasatanib, efavirenz, etoposide, didanosine, and stavudine.

 

Baraclude 0.5mg and 1mg continues to be exclusively available from Alliance Healthcare.

 

So we have one drug from Alliance, the majority of drugs from AAH or Alliance and some direct from BSM. As a dispensing doctor I am a simple soul, can someone please explain how this complicated system benefits patients or dispensing customers? One dispensary manager we spoke to said, "this is blooming awful, these schemes are just taking up so much time."

 

Many of these products are low volume and there is a risk that low volume surcharges may occur for small dispensing practices that do not use AAH or Alliance as their first line wholesaler.

 

David Baker, DDA CEO told DDA Online, "As an Association we are very unhappy generally at the move by manufacturers to limit our choice of wholesaler (or logistics service provider, if you
prefer). Whereas in the past wholesalers competed effectively with each other for our custom, they are now no longer beholden to us, but to the manufacturers, which is a major change in emphasis. We shall be considering in the next few days whether the number and scale of imposed changes now warrants a referral to the Office of Fair Trading."

 

BMS letter which lists products.

See our recent story The end of full line wholesaling 

 

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