DThe Frankfurt public prosecutor's office has confirmed research by WDR, NDR and Süddeutscher Zeitung, according to which pharmacists are also being investigated in Frankfurt as part of a nationwide complex. It is about the suspicion that packs of the anti-Covid-19 drug Paxlovid, which the federal government bought from the manufacturer Pfizer in 2022 and made available to pharmacies free of charge to give to patients, were illegally resold.
When asked, a spokesman for the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office said that the authority had several investigations, a “mid-single-digit number”, pending in the complex. Several people are being investigated on suspicion of property crimes and violations of the Medicines Act. The investigation is ongoing, so no further information can be provided at this time for tactical reasons. For this reason, the spokesman also did not confirm the number of 10,000 packs of Paxlovid that a pharmacist from downtown Frankfurt is said to have ordered.
Some more than 1000 packs
According to the report, the proceedings began nationwide after the Federal Ministry of Health filed complaints. It was therefore noticed that individual pharmacies had ordered more than 1,000 packs of the drug, which the EU Commission had conditionally approved in January 2022 as the first antiviral drug for oral use for the treatment of Covid-19. According to the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices, Paxlovid can be prescribed by doctors and ordered by pharmacies via wholesalers since February 2022. Since January 2023, pharmacies have only been allowed to stock up to 20 therapy units, and family doctors have been allowed to stock up to five.
But according to the media association's report, a similar number of packs were ordered by individual pharmacies in 2023. Overall, this gave rise to the suspicion that something was wrong given these quantities. It seemed unrealistic to the Federal Ministry of Health that just one pharmacy could suddenly have so many customers who had been prescribed Paxlovid.
Damage in the millions
Ultimately, according to the report, reports were filed with more than 25 public prosecutors nationwide. There were then searches in several regions in Bavaria, two suspects were being investigated in Hamburg, and six pharmacies were the focus of the investigative authorities in Berlin, with the public prosecutor there estimating the possible damage caused at three million euros. The first charges in the capital are expected to be filed in the first quarter. In Baden-Baden, meanwhile, according to research, the first charges were brought before Christmas 2023. According to the prosecution, a pharmacist is accused of breach of trust in conjunction with “unauthorized wholesale trading” because he is said to have sold almost 1,400 packs of Paxlovid “to unidentifiable persons abroad”.
However, according to a spokesman, proceedings against an accused at the Darmstadt public prosecutor's office have been discontinued. She was also suspected of having “ordered an unusual quantity” of the drug in order to sell it on abroad and thereby unlawfully “gain a financial advantage”. However, the investigation revealed that the woman did not bring the drug abroad herself, but that there was a mix-up: the Paxlovid probably accidentally came to Ukraine as part of a drug donation campaign. “We assume that there was a misunderstanding or a mix-up during the transport of the medicines,” said the spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office.
WDR, NDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung quote the Federal Ministry of Health as saying that the wholesaler delivered a total of 560,000 therapy units to pharmacies nationwide. How much of this was actually given to patients is unclear.
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