Pharmacy Daily | ASMI welcomes age regime

THE Australian Self-Medication Industry has welcomed most of the TGA’s interim scheduling decisions (PD yesterday), and in particular the maintenance of current scheduling of all twenty active cough and cold medicine ingredients under consideration. Instead age-based restrictions will be undertaken by the TGA, with ASMI executive director Deon Schoombie saying the “sensible and balanced outcome” would ensure parents and carers are able to continue to have access to products that have been widely available for many years. The exemption of additional Nicotine Replacement Therapy products from scheduling has also been welcomed, which will in particular enable more formats to be offered in grocery as well as pharmacy outlets. The exemption of small packs of loperamide has also been hailed by ASMI as expanding the antidiarrhoeal product’s distribution beyond pharmacies. However a decision to disallow consumer advertising of Pariet (rabeprazole) has disappointed ASMI because it makes it “very hard for consumers to be made aware that medicines are now available from pharmacists without prescription, and keeping this information from consumers does not appear to serve any useful public health purpose,” Schoombie said.

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