Significantly falling number of pharmacies

Number of pharmacies reached its lowest level since 1994

The number of pharmacies is decreasing with increasing speed, warns the branch service "Apotheke ADHOC", citing information from the pharmacists' chambers of the federal states. For the first time since 1994, the number of pharmacies fell below 21,000 at the end of 2012. A pharmacy in Germany closed almost every working day last year.

Overall, the number of pharmacies fell in 2012 by 295 (1.4 percent) to 20,934 main and branch pharmacies, according to the current report. 480 pharmacies had to close by the end of 2012, but 185 new pharmacies were also opened. Bremen had to cope with the sharpest decline. Here the number of pharmacies fell by almost five percent. Nine pharmacies were closed and only one was opened. The number of pharmacies in Bremen had already decreased by 6.3 percent in the previous year. The pharmacy closures were also particularly badly affected by the pharmacy closings in 2012, the Westphalia-Lippe Chamber District, Saarland, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine, according to "Apotheke ADHOC". According to current data, the number of pharmacies is "despite the branching at the lowest level in 18 years."

Pharmacies as branches The decline in pharmacies has already been slowed down by the approval of the limited additional ownership and would probably have been much stronger in the past few years if it had not been possible to take over the pharmacies threatened by closure as branch pharmacies, reports “the branch service. In 2008, the number of pharmacies in Germany peaked at 21,602 branches, but since then "the number of pharmacies has been falling again - with increasing speed." (Fp)

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