The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7361 p179
6 August 2005

Society summary

VMD head confirms that pharmacy category for veterinary medicines is to disappear

The chief executive of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, Steve Dean, has confirmed to a meeting of veterinary pharmacists that the pharmacy-only category of animal medicines is to disappear when the new Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2005 are implemented on 31 October.

Mr Dean made that clear at the annual conference of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Veterinary Pharmacists Group, held in Telford on 24 July. He said that the 12 products currently classified as pharmacy medicines would be reassigned elsewhere.

Mr Dean said that he understood pharmacists’ frustration at losing this exclusivity but the manufacturers had not shown any great enthusiasm for keeping the P category. He thought that pharmacists could still operate effectively without this “monopoly”.

Giving an outline of the new regulations, Mr Dean said that they would consolidate UK and EU legislation relevant to veterinary medicines and remove the reliance on the Medicines Act 1968. Although the main core of the regulations was ready, fine tuning was still necessary in some areas. These included:

· The advertising of prescription-only medicines to farmers

· Postal and internet sales, where possessing (as well as selling) unregistered veterinary medicines was to be made an offence

· Record keeping by veterinary surgeons

· Training for merchants

In the future the regulations would be reissued every year, giving the opportunity to make amendments and accommodate changes in European law.

Me Dean added that in the near future the Department of Trade and Industry would separately address the recommendations of the independent review of veterinary dispensing led by Sir John Marsh (PJ, 26 May 2001, p700) and the Competition Commission investigation into the supply of prescription-only veterinary medicines (PJ, 4 May 2002, p601). The door for pharmacists to dispense veterinary prescriptions will be opened more widely, he said.