Greece’s Ministry of Health is set to implement two significant interventions regarding the distribution of high cost medication currently managed by Greece’s National Organization for Healthcare Services Provision’s (EOPYY) specialized pharmacies. The interventions include ‘home delivery’ initiative and medication distribution through private-neighborhood pharmacies.

The closed EOPYY pharmacy on Alexandras Avenue, in Athens that many citizens were faced with on the morning of January 21, highlighted the long-standing issue of the exclusive distribution of many expensive medications through the organization’s specialized pharmacies.

EOPYY manages a total of 3,246 high-cost drug codes, of which about 1,500 are distributed annually. These drugs are known as ‘FΥK’ (Special Medicines), and are used for serious illnesses, often involving chronic patients.

Many of these drugs are not immediately available, as they are not marketed in Greece for various reasons. In such cases, special importation is arranged through requests made to Greece’s National Organization for Medicines.

In total, there are 38 pharmacies in the EOPYY network across Greece. Of these, 33 are exclusively EOPYY pharmacies, while another 5 operate under special conditions.

Additionally, there are four virtual pharmaceutical warehouses that manage the delivery of medications to private pharmacies upon patients’ requests. In principle, the patient can request to collect the prescription at any of the 11,000 private pharmacies in the country.

Regarding the 5 special status pharmacies, they require the collection of all medications from another central EOPYY pharmacy that has completed the receipt process.

Since the fall of 2019, EOPYY has made an agreement with private clinics so that patients, especially oncology patients, do not have to wait at private clinics for medications intended for hospital use. This means they can go to a private clinic to receive the medication.

Home delivery of medications can be done by any pharmacy. However, almost all shipments are currently made from the two delivery pharmacies in Rendi and Evosmos.

Home delivery includes two main categories, delivery of a limited number of high-cost medications to specific patient categories or to remote areas, and delivery of oral antiviral medications.

Despite home delivery still being relatively limited EOPYY aims to significantly increase the volume of its service, ensuring a distribution network that will cover up to 200,000 patients nationwide each month. A pilot program is already in place, involving around 2,000 patients nationwide who will receive four categories of medications without requiring cold chain storage. As of April this year, this system will expand to serve 120,000 patients.

In the past, many high-cost medications (FΥK), available in Greece through pharmaceutical companies, were distributed through private pharmacies. However, this stopped due liquidity issues which arose for pharmacists because of the high cost for stocking these medications.

Pharmacists are now ready to return to the process of distributing them, with EOPYY, stating that the system for such a development is ready, and proper distribution can be ensured to avoid side effects such as illegal exports.

Finally, in cases of areas where there are no EOPYY pharmacies, patients can order and pick up high-cost medications (FΥK) at any EOPYY delivery point that serves their location, according to the organization. To do so, provision of necessary documentation such as a prescription or hospital certificate is required.