In the last few years, deregulation of public services has taken place in several Member States of the European Union. One of the sectors targeted is health care, and, among others, the pharmacy business. Pharmacy is, by tradition a strictly regulated sector, in order to guarantee high quality of and broad accessibility to pharmaceuticals. Typical regulations in the pharmacy sector concern the establishment of new pharmacies (often based on the
assessment of the public's needs), ownership issues (pharmacies owned by independent pharmacists, prohibition of pharmacy chains), as well as the quality of the training of pharmacists and other staff working in community pharmacies.
The rationale behind deregulation in the pharmacy sector is the expectation that liberalisation will increase competition and thus succeed in lowering, or at least containing, (public) expenditure, while accessibility to and quality of pharmacy services will be, at least, kept stable or even be improved by the opening of new outlets. By now, scientific evidence has not been provided for the arguments in favour of deregulation especially in the pharmacy sector, as no detailed investigation has yet been carried out on this particular issue in Europe. The Pharmaceutical Group of European Union (PGEU) commissioned the Vienna-based,
independent research institute ÖBIG (Österreichisches Bundesinstitut für Gesundheitswesen/ Austrian Health Institute) to survey and analyse possible effects of deregulation in the pharmacy sector, with a special focus on the accessibility to, the quality of, and the expenditure
of pharmacy services. Performance indicators of pharmacy services were developed, analysed and ranked, based on data gathered in selected European countries, analysed and
ranked. In addition, to examine the assumption of cost-containment triggered by deregulation, the ÖBIG team performed a single-price comparison of OTC blockbusters.