Abstract

The continuing decline in the pharmaceutical expenditure deduction, the increasing fees paid by pharmacies in favor of the NHS and the crisis that reduces the spending power of the citizen, triggered a huge drop in the profitability of the Italian pharmacies. However the crisis can also be positive because it forces the companies to deploy all the resources needed to invert the situation, changing certain vicious behaviors in favor of virtuous ones. But if on the one hand, it is the single pharmacist who should implement corrective measures, on the other hand some problems must be solved by the entire distribution system in order to prevent the marginalization of the pharmacy. A good solution might be represented by the emerging tendency of the online sale of OTC pharmaceuticals, already recognized by the market trends and regulated at the European Law level, and almost completely implemented by the Italian legislation . This opportunity might increase the health related products demand whereas an optimal marketing and administrative strategy is executed. Nevertheless, the strategy should be designed to create the prospective for the pharmacy to re-achieve the distribution that has been lost; with a direct distribution the pharmacy loses and the intermediate distribution channel as well, with an higher number of losers than winners, in the end. Hence, the technological solution proposition i.e. the web pharmacy, has to take into consideration this disintermediation problem that should be strengthened instead of weakened, at least to some degrees. It can be already anticipated that the Italian normative alignment with the European directive proposes to solve the problem of the disintermediation naturally related to the e-commerce adoption, with the possibility for the E-pharmacy to exist only if a physical shop already exists behind it.