Group items tagged

In many cases, a pharmacy's most valuable asset is its NHS contract. This is what buyers are paying for - the right to provide pharmaceutical services commissioned by the NHS and be reimbursed for the medicines dispensed. However, a pharmacy consists of more than just an NHS contract and when buyers look for a pharmacy to buy, they will also examine these other areas - the pharmacy's customer base, its staff, the property it operates from - to name a few - because these are all also crucial to a successful pharmacy. In this day and age, another important consideration is the pharmacy's intellectual property (IP) i.e. the pharmacy's rights to certain types of information, ideas, and forms of expression. At the most basic level, this includes the trade mark in the name of the pharmacy, because all pharmacies will have a name by which they distinguish themselves from other pharmacies. The more well-known the name, the more valuable this form of IP is - mention 'Boots', for example, and most will have an instant association with the largest pharmaceutical retailer in the UK.

British drugmaker GSK has signed deals with three companies allowing them to make inexpensive generic versions of its long-acting HIV preventive medicine for use in lower-income countries, where the majority of new HIV cases occur. The injected drug cabotegravir is approved by regulators in Britain and the United States. Last July, GSK announced a program with the United Nations-backed healthcare organisation, the Medicines Patent Pool, aiming to get poor countries access to new HIV therapies far earlier than they did for previous HIV medicines. During the HIV/AIDs epidemic in Africa in the 1990s and early 2000s, in which many millions of people died, treatments used widely in wealthy countries were unavailable on the continent. GSK said last year the new program could result in the generic form of its injection being available in lower-income countries beginning in 2026. The drugmaker's HIV treatment division, ViiV Healthcare, said in a statement on Wednesday it had issued voluntary licenses - waiving intellectual property rights - to Aurobindo, Cipla and Viatris, which will manufacture the generic versions of injectable cabotegravir.