We had a situation where a customer was convinced that her infant son was given the wrong dosage of omeprazole/sodium bicarb, so that was sent away and assayed by a third party. Ended up that the compound was correct, so her lawsuit was tossed. I wouldn't want that sort of legal responsibility riding on my shoulders, which it sounds like it would be in Germany. Better to let a chemist do that, IMO.

I'm curious if they have a handbook on how to do assays for various drugs, binders, and disintegrants? Then again, I don't do much compounding, either. (Though I have been known to play around with various concoctions to see how they behave.)

Come to think of it, we never studied specific dyes, binders, OR disintegrants in pharmaceutics. Hrm, I think maybe that's more in line with the Masters in Industrial Pharmacy degree. Also, I think that sort of thing could be learned pretty easily on the job if you needed to.

On the whole, such a lab setup seems like a phenomenal waste of money and space. If they wanted to keep the archaic rule, perhaps they could modernize it by having centralized lab where it could be done. Better a nicely-done assay than a second-rate job done by someone who doesn't do it regularly. And the space that stuff takes up — I don't know about you, but our pharmacies are CRAMMED full of stuff. We almost never have enough space for everything.

OTC remedies are sold only in pharmacies in Germany, not in other retail stores. Pharmacies operate in Germany today similarly to the way they did in the U.S. 50 years ago—all independents, all operating on personal service, all healthcare-oriented (no toys, automotive, beverages, etc.)

I ran out of Excedrin when I was in Berlin. I went into a pharmacy and showed the pharmacist (who could speak English; I speak no German) the empty U.S. bottle. She looked around and finally said, "What I have is ALMOST the same as this, except one ingredient." What she showed me was aspirin, caffeine, and paracetamol, which IS the same formula as Excedrin (the amounts of each drug were about the same as in Excedrin). "Yes, it is the same. In the U.S., we call paracetamol acetaminophen. I"ll confess–I'm an American pharmacist" (grin). The product in Germany is labeled for migraine use, and is available only in 12-tablet packages. This year, in Australia, I learned that the packages are small to prevent overdose.

All German pharmacies are required to have a complete organic chemistry laboratory on site to be able to prove the contents of their compounded products! I saw one of these. It would be the envy of any university chemistry department: separatory funnels, distillation columns, a complete set of glassware, etc. The pharmacist admitted that it was an anachronism, that they almost never use it, and wished that the requirement be repealed.

The funny thing was they insisted on giving us a Professional Discount and said– anytime you need more, and are coming over– give us a call!

It was a riot… We've visited them several times both in San Diego at a pharmacy conference and back in TJ.