4 ms·

I never understood why drug manufacturers bother creating retail packaging for their drugs which the patient never sees. It just ends up in that generic orange

I never understood why drug manufacturers bother creating retail packaging for their drugs which the patient never sees. It just ends up in that generic orange bottle anyways. Why not cut out the middleman? Package them in common amounts at the factory, and then slap the doctor's instructions on the bottle.

ghaff 4y ago
One (common) prescription I get I just get a pre-packaged prescription bottle with a label slapped on. Not sure why my other equally common prescriptions aren't provided in the same form.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
  Presumably it’s much more cost effective to ship pills in containers that are much larger than increments of 30, 60, 90 etc. But paying a pharm tech to count it isn’t really free. I wish I knew too, because one of my scripts is like that as well and it’s only a 30 unit script.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    And yet, we don't ship (most) food in bulk to supermarkets for local repackaging for consumer sale. Certainly it's cheaper for the manufacturer to ship in larger lots and have the retailer take care of the consumer sale, but it's usually more efficient overall to do at least most of the packaging at the factory.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
ourmandave 4y ago
So I had to look up drug packaging and the second sentence on wikipedia says: Pharmaceutical packaging is highly regulated but with some variation in the details, depending on the country of origin or the region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_packaging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_packaging
throwaway098328 4y ago
We already do this for Zithromax Z-Pak, Imitrex, Diflucan, and Medrol DosePak where the directions and prescribed quantity are always the same. For other drugs, in practice you get short supply on a drug, and can only fill a partial, or you have patients that only want a weeks worth. Another factor is the packaging adds extra cost, and it's cheaper to order a bulk 500 count bottle.

ghaff 4y ago

One (common) prescription I get I just get a pre-packaged prescription bottle with a label slapped on. Not sure why my other equally common prescriptions aren't provided in the same form.

SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
Presumably it’s much more cost effective to ship pills in containers that are much larger than increments of 30, 60, 90 etc. But paying a pharm tech to count it isn’t really free. I wish I knew too, because one of my scripts is like that as well and it’s only a 30 unit script.
- ghaff 4y ago
  And yet, we don't ship (most) food in bulk to supermarkets for local repackaging for consumer sale. Certainly it's cheaper for the manufacturer to ship in larger lots and have the retailer take care of the consumer sale, but it's usually more efficient overall to do at least most of the packaging at the factory.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

ourmandave 4y ago

So I had to look up drug packaging and the second sentence on wikipedia says: Pharmaceutical packaging is highly regulated but with some variation in the details, depending on the country of origin or the region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_packaging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_packaging

throwaway098328 4y ago

We already do this for Zithromax Z-Pak, Imitrex, Diflucan, and Medrol DosePak where the directions and prescribed quantity are always the same. For other drugs, in practice you get short supply on a drug, and can only fill a partial, or you have patients that only want a weeks worth. Another factor is the packaging adds extra cost, and it's cheaper to order a bulk 500 count bottle.