Unused medicines

Through packaging innovations and other initiatives, we are working to promote patient adherence to their treatment regime (ie completing their course of medication). The main aim is to ensure that the patient gets the full benefit from the medicine, but improved adherence also reduces the amount of medicines that are not used.

When medicines have to be discarded, patients should have the information needed to do so in an environmentally sensible manner.  We work with national and local authorities to ensure that appropriate disposal options and guidance are available, and discourage disposal to the drain or directly to sewage systems.  We support the use of approved, voluntary take back programmes where these are available.

In the EU, for example, we are following the EU Directive recommendation to include a statement on the patient information leaflet about how to handle waste product.

In the US, we support the prescription drug disposal guidelines from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and the SMARxT Disposal Guidelines developed by the US Fish and Wildlife Serve and the American Pharmacists Association in partnership with the US pharmaceutical industry association, PhRMA.  These guidelines are designed to raise awareness of the potential environmental impact from improperly disposed of medicines and to provide proactive guidance through proper disposal alternatives.