Chain pharmacies are facing a major change. Chain expansion up in the air.
08-11-2016
According to the amendment of the Polish Pharmaceutical Law drafted by members of the Polish Parliament, as early as next year, only pharmacists will be eligible for licenses to run pharmacies and, what is more, a pharmacist will be allowed to run not mor
Furthermore, the draft amendment assumes changes in the spatial distribution of pharmacies, with one pharmacy per 3,000 residents and the minimum distance between pharmacies or pharmaceutical points should not be less than 1 km.
“According to the draft, as soon as the Pharmaceutical Law is adopted, only pharmacists with the right to practice the profession and operate as sole traders will be eligible for licenses to run pharmacies. Other eligible entities will include some Polish civil law-based partnerships and, specifically: spółka jawna [general partnership] or spółka partnerska [limited liability partnership], whose sole business is running pharmacies and having only pharmacists with the right to practice the profession as partners, as well as spółka komandytowa [limited partnership], whose sole business is running pharmacies and whose general partners are pharmacists holding the right to practice their profession only. For this reason, it is not going to be legally permissible to issue licenses to run a pharmacy to commercial companies. There is no doubt that this approach will change everything for pharmacies since, at the moment, the majority of pharma chains are owned by no one other than commercial companies,” commented Joanna Domoń-Kulas, Legal Adviser, Causa Finita Commercial Real Estate Law Firm.
“What is more, the draft amendment includes some geographic and demographic restrictions on opening new pharmacies. A license to run a pharmacy will not be issued when, as of the day of issuing the license, the number of residents in a region per one pharmacy open to the general public is lower than 3,000. The restriction will not apply only when the distance from the planned location of a pharmacy to the nearest existing pharmacy, measured as a straight line, is at least 1,000 m. As emphasised by Joanna Domoń-Kulas, this means that, in practice, not a single permit will be issued in the Mazovian Region, which now reports nearly 1,800 pharmacies for the population of 5.32 million,” stresses Joanna Domoń-Kulas.
If the Pharmaceutical Law is amended as described above, its consequences would severely affect developers of commercial centres/shopping malls. However, according to the draft, the amendment would only apply to newly established entities and, for this reason, licenses issued to existing chain pharmacies would remain effective. Nevertheless, existing chains would not be able to open any new points of sale. What is more, according to the Pharmaceutical Law, some licenses may be issued for a defined period. What will happen then, when a license issued to a pharmacy operating in a shopping mall expires?
There are more than 390 pharma chains with five or more pharmacies operating on the Polish market, representing 38% of all units operating on the market.
The draft amendment is now being discussed and agreed upon between different ministries and has already been presented at the meeting of the Parliamentary Team for Pharma Market Regulation. Considering the high legislative efficiency of the current authorities in Poland, it should be expected that the amended Pharmaceutical Law will soon be enacted. You may find it interesting that, in Europe, the "pharmacy for pharmacists only" concept is nothing new since, at present, similar laws are in force in 12 out of 28 EU states. However, recently, EU states are tending to withdraw from such solutions and are reinstating a free and open pharma market. This has been the case in Portugal, the Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Lithuania and Bulgaria. “Hungary is the only country which has recently introduced solutions similar to those in the pipeline in Poland,” states Joanna Domoń-Kulas, Legal Adviser, Causa Finita Commercial Real Estate Law Firm.