Enhancing patient safety is our mission

The success of a drug and its benefit to the patient or consumer is determined in the market. Why not use intelligence from the real world to prepare for the launch and to monitor and optimise its success? PHOENIX group is a leading integrated healthcare provider present in 27 European countries. Our real-world universe includes 150,000,000 patient contacts each year visiting our 2,500 own pharmacies, one of our 13,500 cooperation partners or one of the 56,000 pharmacies which are supplied with products through the wholesale channel.

On 9th February 2019 the European Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) is going into effect. The aim of FMD is to combat the entry of falsified medicines in the legitimate pharmaceutical supply chain. The FMD requires the placement of safety features consisting of a unique identifier and an anti-tampering device on the packaging of certain prescribed medicinal products for human use for the purposes of allowing their identification and authentication.

The PHOENIX group as trusted and quality-oriented healthcare provider in 27 European countries takes the topic of Falsified Medicines Directive very seriously. Several business segments are impacted: retail, wholesale, healthcare logistics (pre-wholesale) and GMP services, such as repackaging. The implementation of FMD across the different business segments in the various countries is progressing well and PHOENIX will be ready and FMD-compliant by 9th February 2019.

Especially patient safety is of paramount importance to PHOENIX and that's why our engagement is an essential step forward to ensure the safety of medicines that reach patients - in every market! That's why we have been working diligently and pro-actively on the implementation of the EU Falsified Medicines Directive across all of our business areas to be fully compliant to the legislation in all impacted markets. PHOENIX is constantly involved in the implementation process together with the other supply chain panners and their representative bodies at both national and European levels. In this respect, PHOENIX has collaborated and still actively collaborating actively with the European Healthcare Distribution Association (GIRP), which functions as the umbrella organisation for pharmaceutical full line wholesalers in Europe, and of which PHOENIX is a full member company. 

In addition to the technological aspects of the FMD implementation, PHOENIX countries are investing a lot of effort locally in dispensing appropriate education and training to their employees, in order to make the transition into the FMD era as seamless as possible, which by extension, implies better service to our end customers, in line with our patient-centric approach.