INVENTING MEDICINE REDISTRIBUTION
Did you know that every year more than 100 million euro worth of valuable medicine is thrown away in the Netherlands?
A great waste, right?
We aim to offer a solution!
Curious? Look at the video below.
The problem
It is estimated that every year more than 100 million euros worth of medication ends up in the trash, in the Netherlands alone. This is between 2 % and 3 % of the total amount spent on medication in the Netherlands per year. [1] This means that the same amount of community money gets burned in the oven.
Currently the law forbids the re-use and redistribution of medication once the medication has left the pharmacy. However, there is a pilot running in 4 hospitals that aims to redistribute expensive cancer medication in case it was not used by the patient to whom it was first handed out. The results of this pilot already seem very promising. The pilot that is running now is an expression of the sense of urgency to deal with this problem. Due to the demographic aging this problem will most likely increase as will the overall national health expenses.
The goal
The aim is to explore and determine what possibilities there are to deal with this issue in Dutch society and to offer a solution that could help to lower the loss of high-quality medication. The solution consists of a product and a service that collects and redistributes un-used medication.
This would benefit the whole population because the money could be spent on good health care, for instance. And the environment would also benefit if the recycling and redistribution of medicine prevents medication to end up in nature and therefore eventually in the food chain.
