ASDA Move "Threat To Pharmacies"

UK supermarket ASDA's continued attack on resale price maintenance on over-the-counter health products (Marketletters passim) threatens the livelihood of many independent community pharmacists who will not be able to compete in the price was which will inevitably follow, according to the Community Pharmacy Action Group.

This will mean many community pharmacists no longer stocking many medicines, says the CPAG. They will eventually have to close, forcing consumers to travel longer distances for their medicines and advice, and to have their prescriptions dispensed. The CPAG says it assumes that ASDA's attacks on RPM have been a way of publicizing its new line of cut-price health products, and hopes that "having manipulated the maximum publicity for their own launch, they will now leave the RPM issue to the Office of Fair Trading."

The CPAG is fighting to keep RPM, and is supported by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, the National Pharmaceutical Association and the Proprietary Association of Great Britain, among other groups.