Pharmacy Thefts Happen on Both Sides of the Counter
Posted on July 22, 2010While OxyContin and other generic painkillers are a product of choice when it comes to stealing prescription medications, other medications are starting to gain attention as well. In a recent Bnet piece, a report shows that pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies are attractive to thieves.
In August of 2009, GlaxoSmithKline reported that 25,600 Advair Diskus inhalers were stolen from its warehouses. This $5 million dollar hit was a surprise to the pharmaceutical as Advair is not always a target for theft. The bigger surprise was when the stolen products started showing up on pharmacy store shelves.
This theft and subsequent emersion of the product demonstrates another problem in the pharmaceutical industry. While some drugs are stolen for sale on the streets or to satisfy an addiction, others are taken to be resold back to the original pharmacy for which they were intended.
It is easy to always assume that the criminal is on the customer side of the counter, but this is a cutthroat industry and one industry survey shows that 34 percent of pharmacies have rogue employees who take both merchandise and cash. Another 44 percent of pharmacy chains report employee theft.
Consider one of the bigger cases when RSF Pharmaceuticals lost its license after the organization was linked with a prescription scam that involved the NFL Chargers. RSF was run by a former president of the San Diego County pharmacists association, demonstrating it wasn’t a back alley operation.
When you think about the amount of money that can be generated by one bottle of OxyContin on the streets – the pills have gone for $10 a piece or more – an employee able to sneak a few out each day can supplement their minimum wage pharmacy income quite nicely.
