June 2020 - Newsletter #6

Worldwide Prescription Drug Shortages are Confirmed by Another Pharmacist Survey

Several NorthWestPharmacy.com newsletters have notified customers that a broad range of pharmaceutical products are out of stock. We've also advised that this phenomenon is not unique to NorthWestPharmacy.com. It is being experienced by distributors worldwide, including in the United States. Most of the products on the out of stock list are reported by our suppliers to have no estimated time of delivery to them, which is very unusual under normal circumstances. This is particularly concerning because we've never seen so many products out of stock in the history of our business and the list continues to grow. Even the commonly prescribed anti-depressant Zoloft is unavailable in many parts of the world.

Now, a survey of pharmacy professionals in the United Kingdom that was conducted by Chemist+Druggist (C+D), a 160 year old publication for community pharmacists in the UK, reveals that 77% of pharmacists surveyed in the UK "have experienced medicines shortages as a result of COVID-19" with 75.5% of pharmacists also responding that, "[m]edicines shortages were [their] second biggest concern for the future." This dovetails with the recent survey of Canadian pharmacists that we informed customers about, in which the majority of Canadian pharmacists say they received reduced quantities of stock and nearly half didn't receive any stock at all of certain products they ordered due to drug shortages and wholesaler rationing.

All of this aligns with what we've experienced directly in the sourcing of prescription drugs from our approved supply network which includes pharmacies in Canada, the UK and elsewhere and what we've observed in the United States and other parts of the world.

Some of the feedback from the pharmacists surveyed was published in the C+D article. "Several respondents [in the UK pharmacist survey] commented about the price of medicines having risen … with one stating that an issue is 'huge increases in generic prices'…" and another lamenting that "'low supply and high demand' of some 'key medicines' … has caused an overinflation of prices." These are the type of price increases we've absorbed over the last few months as just one of our efforts to help mitigate the impact of the coronavirus crisis on our customers.

But the good news is that NorthWestPharmacy.com has been successfully taking, processing and delivering affordable prescription drugs throughout the entire coronavirus crisis and continues to. So, we do not wish to appear alarmist in highlighting concerns about the supply of prescription drugs in the coming months but we do directly experience the frustration of those who cannot get their vital prescription drugs when there are so many disruptions in the drug supply chain due to the coronavirus crisis. We do not want our customers to be in a position where procurement of inventory and delivery logistics could be more negatively impacted than they already are today and we believe it is our duty to diligently inform customers.

In light of the escalating number of products going out of stock, we encourage customers who may need medications in the coming months to place their orders now and those whose pending orders await shipping to keep their orders active and in the queue, which ensures they are locked in at the original price quoted at the time of placing the order. That's beneficial to you because we've absorbed much of the coronavirus-related increases in product acquisition and other costs that we've faced to date but may be unable to do so for much longer. Also, the limited pharmaceutical supply, available cargo space for transport and customs clearances will all be allocated to customers on a first-come-first-served basis and we anticipate that it may be quite some time before worldwide drug supply and delivery systems return to normal.

With more than 375,000 customer reviews, NorthWestPharmacy.com is the most reviewed and independently five-star rated online pharmacy in the world providing lower cost medications from abroad to customers worldwide. No competitor offering lower cost pharmaceuticals from abroad can match our supply and delivery capacity during this difficult time so please be assured we are leveraging all our capacity to ensure orders reach customers as fast as possible in the circumstances.

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