Back orders of pharmaceuticals is a growing challenge globally. The problem arises if a supplier cannot meet demand from hospital pharmacies. This could be because production cannot keep up, or if there is a shortage of raw materials, or if the price of an older drug is so low that it is no longer attractive for suppliers to stay on the market.
As a small country with a small market, Denmark is not necessarily first in line when suppliers are also to supply larger European countries. Amgros takes this challenge extremely seriously. We will never be able to prevent back orders completely. But we can make sure that we keep to the negative trends in check. We do this by launching initiatives to make it attractive to supply the Danish market with pharmaceuticals.
During 2020 and 2021, we managed to reduce the number of back orders of hospital medicines by 20%. The number of back orders of medicines for public hospitals in Denmark has generally remained constant over the past years. One reason for the reduction is that, in close dialogue with hospital pharmacies and our suppliers, we have built up and expanded our own stocks during the pandemic, and hospital pharmacies and suppliers have also built up their own stocks.
In order to reduce the number of back orders, Amgros makes sure to inform suppliers regularly about expected consumption at hospital pharmacies. This ensures that suppliers have better preconditions to supply the required medicine and to prioritise delivery to the Danish market.
In recent years, we have become even better at estimating demand from hospital pharmacies. Each month, we systematically ask hospital pharmacies about expected changes for the coming period in their consumption of selected drugs with "unusual consumption". If the estimate changes significantly, we inform the supplier immediately.
We have special focus on dealing with back-order issues for the most important pharmaceuticals. In collaboration with the hospital pharmacies, we have selected a list of critical pharmaceuticals that are particularly important to have available at hospitals. We keep a special eye on these in of our daily work.
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In 2018, Amgros set up the option to have own stocks. In the long term, this will help secure supplies of pharmaceuticals further. It will provide greater flexibility, because we can supplement hospital pharmacies’ own stocks, and we can buy larger batches of supply-critical pharmaceuticals.
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Procurement and supply
Amgros informs the hospital pharmacies when we have set up an agreement to purchase a pharmaceutical. After this, hospital pharmacies send their purchase orders to the supplier
READ MOREStrategic stocks
Hospital pharmacies and Amgros share a joint strategic stock. In combination with stocks at hospital pharmacies and suppliers, this is an important element in work to secure supplies of hospital medicines. Not least with respect to treatment and supply-critical medicines
READ MOREContact
Charlotte Meinicke
Head of Procurement and Supply
My job is to help chart the strategic direction for procurement and supplies of medicines and hearing aids in close cooperation with hospital pharmacies, hearing clinics and suppliers. This secures more cost-effective healthcare solutions.