Why do pharmacies refuse to fill prescriptions for Ozempic and Trulicity?

Problems with the availability of some diabetes drugs have been stable for a long time. This applies m.in to the medicinal products Ozempic and Trulicity. The continuous increase in demand for them further deepens the crisis. I fully understand the frustration of patients unable to fill a prescription for essential medicines. This should not be the case. From the pharmacist's perspective, however, the problem is more complex. Pharmacies, currently receiving several packages of medicine once a month, face the challenge of providing the drug to patients who have started filling annual prescriptions in a given facility, on which doctors usually write a larger number of packages, and the patient can systematically fill individual packages. Those patients are not able to buy the medicine in a pharmacy other than the one where the first pack was purchased. For this reason, you may have met with the answer that the purchase of the drug is not possible. This is not due to the pharmacist's ill will. If the problem is with Ozempic or Trulicity, here are links to track the availability of medicines: - https://www.gdziepolek.pl/produkty/99258/ozempic-iniekcja/statystyki, - https://www.gdziepolek.pl/produkty/87306/trulicity-iniekcja/statystyki. In case of a problem with the purchase of Ozempic, it is worth consulting with a diabetologist the possibility of using a drug containing the same medicinal substance as Ozempic-semaglutide, in the form of oral tablets - Rybelsus, the availability of which in pharmacies is much better. Below is a link to track the availability of Rybelsus: https://www.gdziepolek.pl/produkty/111644/rybelsus-tabletki/apteki These drugs, due to the different form of administration and pharmacokinetics, can not be treated as substitutes, hence the possible modification of treatment can only be decided by the attending physician by issuing a new prescription. We wrote more about modern drugs for diabetes in the text: https://www.gdziepolek.pl/blog/nowe-leki-na-otylosc-i-cukrzyce-jak-nie-dac-sie-oszukac