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	The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 270 No 7243 p476 5 April 2003	This page Reprint Photocopy
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Diskhalers

Why the change from 14-disk to 15-disk packs?

From Mr R. F. J. Slade, MRPharmS

In my opinion the most basic piece of medicines management is to ensure that patients are receiving and taking their medicines with the least amount of waste. To that end, one of the easiest solutions would be for 28-day prescribing and for all medicines, where practical, to be packed in multiples of 28. I was under the impression this was a goal we were all moving towards, if somewhat slowly.

I am therefore surprised that a company that is supposed to be committed to medicines management has decided to relaunch its range of disk products not in the previous pack sizes of 56 or 112 but in packs of 120. Perhaps someone can explain how this can possibly be a move in the right direction. With so many of the company's other products, such as Zantac and Seroxat, being already packaged in 30-day packs, are we to assume that GlaxoSmithKline is in fact looking for a 30-day prescribing period, unlike the rest of us, or is this just a method of squeezing a bit more money out of the already overstretched National Health Service?

Richard Slade
Bristol

LINDA CRANE, director, Allen & Hanburys, replies:

The change from 14-disk packs to 15-disk packs on Ventodisk, Becodisk, Serevent and Flixotide Diskhaler was made so that the Diskhaler packs would be consistent with other packs in the Allen & Hanburys respiratory portfolio. There are no plans at this time to change pack sizes for other respiratory medicines. We understand the change may cause some inconvenience initially. However, we believe that having consistency across the majority of our respiratory products will make the prescribing and dispensing of our medicines more straightforward in the long term.

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