Retail Price Maintainence ( RPM ) has now been abolished. What ?
RPM was a practice adopted by High Street Chemists and Pharmaceutical Companies to keep the price of medicines and vitamins artificially high in order to protect their profit margins. This agreement has been in place for years resulting in the consumer being forced to pay inflated prices for branded medicines and vitamins. Eg: Sanatogen, Seven Seas & Roche are branded products kept at high retail price by this agreement. To counter this RPM, cheaper generic brands OF MEDICINES have appeared over the past few years. Although slightly cheaper, they were still being sold at much inflated prices. Supermarket chains like ASDA & TESCO have been trying to lower the price of these products for years but have been prevented from doing so by legal action.
However, as of 15.05.01 the RPM has collapsed as the National Pharmaceutical Association (NPA) - the body that represents Pharmacists -has dropped their legal defence of RPM due to escalating costs of legal action through the Courts.
Q. So, what does this mean for the consumer?
A. Good news, medicines and vitamins will now be available at a much cheaper price from 16.05.01. If pharmacies and drug stores want to compete with the supermarkets, then they will be forced to reduce their prices still further to retain their market share. Indeed Tesco have announced that the are going to reduce the prices of some medicines and vitamins by as much as 40% from 16.05.01.
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May 16th, 2001
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