The vast majority of discounts available to Pharmacist and Dispensing Doctors are between 0% and 19.9%, with the average at 11%.
Most manufacturers do not attempt to compete with parallel imports, as they see it, quite rightly, as competing with themselves. However, with the majority of parallel import discounts being not too far from UK product discounts there may be an argument for pricing strategically to keep imports out of the supply chain. But, there are some parallel imports which have considerably larger discounts, and it would be wise for UK manufacturers not to attempt to compete with these otherwise it would be a race to the bottom.
Additionally, 6% of parallel imports are sold without a discount (0%) and another 5% actually lose pharmacies money because they have negative discounts, which mean they are priced higher than the reimbursement price.
So the motto of this is, ‘Don’t assume that parallel imports are cheap, because this is not always true.’