Head of Pharmacists in Cairo: "Al-Assils" are disappearing... and their work is illegal for these reasons Dr. Mohamed El-Sheikh, Head of Cairo Pharmacists and People’s Representative in the Senate, said that pharmacy chains circumvent the law in Egypt, and caused several crises in the pharmaceutical sector during the past years, ending with some of them collapsing quickly due to major violations. Al-Sheikh explained in an interview with Masrawy, that the Pharmacists Syndicate succeeded during the last period in obtaining final court rulings to write off the owners of some of these chains from the Ministry of Health and drop their membership from the Pharmacists Syndicate, and therefore they are currently working illegally. In the middle of 2019, the Central Administration for Free Treatment and Licensing notified At the Ministry of Health, the Pharmacists Syndicate in Cairo removed Dr. Hatem Rushdi and Dr. Ahmed El-Ezaby from the registers of pharmacists at the Ministry of Health and Population, after a court ruling revoked their membership from the Pharmacists Syndicate. He stressed that the "19011" bankruptcy crisis greatly affected the drug market, and that experience should not be repeated.. To the text of the dialogue: What is the reason for the Pharmacists Syndicate's disagreement with the pharmacy chains? There are final court rulings to write off some owners of existing chains, and their membership has been revoked by the Ministry of Health and the Pharmacists Syndicate, and there are official correspondences between the Ministry of Health and the Syndicate proving this, and therefore their work is illegal. These chains operate in violation of the law. Article 78 of the Pharmacy Profession Law stipulates that anyone who practices the profession of pharmacy without a license or obtains a license to open a pharmacy establishment by fraud or borrowing the name of a pharmacist shall be punished by imprisonment and a fine. Scams happen and some pharmacies are sold to chain owners, some of which expand annually, while others fail quickly. What are the reasons for the collapse of pharmacies chains recently? There is a great circumvention of laws and regulations in Egypt, and these unhealthy entities depend on large loans they obtain from banks and major economic entities, then buy medicines and “burn them”, then expand further, and what happened in the last period is that these chains have had a severe impact On the pharmaceutical market and we have been greatly affected by it, because each pharmacy belongs to a chain that affects 10 pharmacies in its vicinity, because some citizens are fascinated by what these chains offer, as their location is in a special place, but it is rent, and puts a lot of cosmetics and skin care, but in terms of content, it is not It provided excellence for the profession, and did not help in its advancement. The law stipulates a commitment to an area of 100 meters between the pharmacy and the other, but there is a circumvention of this by the presence of an “application” for some chains to deal with them, and to circumvent the laws in a large way, and may harm the patient because the goal is to deal between the patient and the pharmacist, who is more worthy of writing medicines and their prescriptions and knowing that There were side effects to it, especially since medicine is not like other commodities. Rather, it is a strategic commodity and a national security for the country. Therefore, the project singled out the pharmacists sector with specific legislation. How did these chains affect the drug market? These chains expanded remarkably and remarkably, and there are pharmacy groups that did so quickly without conducting any study of the market or the current and future economic conditions, and they entered strangely, and implemented inappropriate policies such as the policy known as “burning”, which affected the economics of pharmacies “some of them are closed and there are people Fils and people have problems because of the chains that appeared in the market." There is also another matter that these pharmacies are not based on sound foundations and are in violation of the law. This affected our reputation in front of the people, and evidence of this is what happened in the crisis of the 19011 series and its collapse. But we are moving in the right direction now to correct the situation instead of the chaos that the Egyptian market witnessed, and the collapses in the chains sector. As those chains were in violation of the law, as you say, how do they work so far? Of course, it is a violation of the law, but he does not go to the Ministry of Health or the Pharmacists Syndicate and resort to the Ministry of Investment and open a commercial registry and add establishments without completing all administrative procedures, as there is no pharmacy in the records of the Ministry of Health with the name "19011", or "Rushdi", and therefore all things are On paper only, this is called a gimmick, and it is all done to get loans. How have the recent chains crises cast a shadow over the pharmaceutical sector? It is assumed that many of the pharmacies obtained by the owners of the chains have returned to their owners again, and then will return to operate them, but the biggest crisis is the impact on our reputation as pharmacists, after there have been major collapses, and these wrong conditions extended to everyone, whether patients or owners of pharmacies or Companies distributing medicines that have huge dues with these chains, or factories and pharmaceutical companies, everyone is harmed because the cycle of manufacturing, distributing and dispensing medicines is linked to everyone in this system Is the era of chains over? We must correct the market and strengthen individual pharmacies and provide facilities for them so that they stand in the way of chains and can develop themselves, instead of giving facilities to companies and chains that cause a crisis to banks as well. Let me tell you, that all pharmacy chains have collapsed during the last period and will not be able to withstand because they are illegal entities that circumvent the law and practice the profession in wrong ways.