Hospitals, Pharma

California startup is rescuing unused prescription drugs and redistributing them

In nursing homes around the country, prescription drugs get thrown out in huge amounts regularly – for reasons […]

In nursing homes around the country, prescription drugs get thrown out in huge amounts regularly – for reasons like they just aren’t finished, there’s an allergic reaction or a patient passed away.

Despite the overload of prescriptions present in nursing homes, they are forbidden by law from dispensing pills (unused or untouched) from one patient to another. This is gruesome to think about, but one patient who died and never ended up using an expensive prescription can’t essentially donate that to a patient in need. It must be trashed.

So perfectly safe, up-to-date medications, already paid for, often by federal or state governments, are being cooked into healthcare concoctions in more than 16,000 nursing homes and other long-term care facilities around the country.

Nurse Deane Kirchner throws what she calls a drug party every few months, which isn’t as fun as it sounds. It’s just a festive way of disposing unused drugs.

“I think if the public knew how we had to destroy so many drugs, they would be surprised,” she said.

There isn’t a lot of finite data on how all of this plays out in the numbers, but it is an obvious issue.

Reusable meds are being thrown out. But one in four people struggle to afford their prescriptions. That makes no sense to George Wang of the California-based nonprofit Sirum, which wants to reduce prescription waste.

“I think lots of people can understand why there is such a desire to find an appropriate outlet to take that medicine and get it out of the waste stream and into someone’s hands,” he says.

Sirum says $700 million worth of medications can be salvaged each year – some 10 million prescriptions.

The situation doesn’t seem too complex: We should allow unused drugs to be re-purposed to those in need. But actually it’s not that simple.

This waste in the system is profit for pharmacies and drug companies. Until this perverse incentive is resolved, you might as well throw a couple twenties down the drain with your prescription meds.

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