Content
Press release
Third-party ownership of pharmacies: Decision lies with individual EU member state
19 May 2009, Stuttgart/Luxembourg.
The decision regarding a third-party ownership ban of pharmacies lies with the individual EU member state. This was decided today by the judges of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg. According to the ruling, the German third-party ownership ban is consistent with the freedom of establishment of the EC Treaty.
“It is good that clarity has now been provided from European law on the third-party ownership ban of pharmacies in Germany. At least this ruling gives Celesio planning reliability for the time being”, said Fritz Oesterle, CEO of Celesio. Celesio and its subsidiary DocMorris will now focus on expanding the brand partner business and mail-order activities.
The company will reportedly stick to the cornerstones of the “Agenda 2015” work programme and the EBITDA goal of more than EUR 1 billion in 2015 associated with this. Oesterle also stated that possible deregulation in Germany was not a part of this work programme. The strategic cornerstones of Celesio’s “Agenda 2015” were presented at the Annual General Meeting on 8 May 2009. At the same time, Fritz Oesterle confirmed the outlook for 2009.
Celesio plans to become much more widely active for the customer groups of patients and consumers, pharmacies and pharmaceutical manufacturers. “Whatever orders pharmaceutical manufacturers assign to external service providers, we aim to cover as many of them as possible”, Oesterle stated. Furthermore, Celesio will expand its activities is to supply pharmacies with “everything they need – and by that I mean ‘everything’: This includes not only the prompt delivery of medicines, but in principle a range from pharmacy software to advertising media”.
Enquiries: Rainer Berghausen, +49 (0)711.5001-549
