Development of methodological framework for setting the drug stock in pharmacy distribution

Abstract

The article has proven that the use of the traditional approach to setting the drug stock level in pharmacy distribution can lead to determination of the level of money immobilized for stock making and does not take into account the needs, expectations and peculiarities of customers, as well as different social significance of specific pharmacological groups of drugs. The methodology making basis for the existing approach to the stock setting does not meet the current requirements to the proper level of the customer service. Thus, the need to improve the approach to setting the medication stock level in pharmacy distribution has arisen. The social responsibility of pharmaceutical business foresees the use of both economic and social parameters in drug stock setting. In social terms, the stock setting task is to determine a list and volume of medications to be available at a warehouse to meet the customers’ needs. The stock should have the following groups: quarantine-prevention, current, buffer and reserve. The volume of daily sale of medications is calculated taking into account the volume of sale: in case of the periods with no seasonal demand fluctuations taking into account the trend of changes in frequency of prescribing drugs in nosology; the reserve stock of medications in case of the unforeseen demand fluctuations; in the period of seasonal demand fluctuations. It has been proven that it is reasonable to substantiate the stock level in pharmacy distribution using the ABC-VEN analysis.Meeting the customer’s needs is the main task of any pharmacy company, including wholesalers. So, it needs to make a stock of pharmaceuticals neither too small – since the company would not be able to maintain the sales and respond flexibly to demand fluctuations, nor too large – it may cause the increase in storage costs, turnover decrease, ‘freezing’ of money invested into purchase. Setting of the stock rate is used to determine the necessary stock level.