Parallel traders are the thorn in the side for pharmaceutical companies operating in Europe. Local sales mangers see their bottom line eroded as independent exporters undercut them with their own product! The considerable efforts that pharma companies have gone to prevent this grey trade have largely failed. The majority of legal actions against traders have been thrown out as freedom of movement of goods enshrined in the Treaty of Rome underpins the European Union.

Now big pharma may have found a way of restricting parallel traders but taking on the distribution of product themselves and thus controlling the supply chain. The adoption of a direct-to-pharmacy (DTP) model, where pharmaceutical manufacturers sell their products directly to pharmacies and appoint a limited number of logistics service providers (LSPs) that are paid a fee to deliver the medicines on their behalf.

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