The Potential Changes to Finnish Pharmacy System Regulations and Their Effect on the Economy

The aims set for this Bachelor’s Thesis are to inspect and evaluate the current retail pharmacy system in Finland, and to investigate what potential changes should be made in order to increase the wellbeing of the population in terms of therapeutical treatment that medicine provides, as well as their impact on the Finnish economy. There are two channels for the delivery of prescription medicine to patients: via community pharmacies and via hospitals or health clinics. This thesis, however, is only focusing on delivery and distribution of medicine via community pharmacies. The whole topic is culminated into one question that the thesis tries to answer through prescriptive analysis. The questions is as follows: How can Finland create better value for the population via deregulating the current pharmacy system? Other Nordic countries’ pharmacy systems are assessed via empirical impact analysis where their experiences from different types of pharmacy system reforms are inspected to see if they can be adopted by Finland’s system. 5 different public authorities’ statements were also assessed more in depth and analysed. The results from the research indicates that there is not just one correct answer nor there is just one aspect that should be addressed when giving suggestions regarding what should or should not be done. The retail pharmacy system consists of multiple volatile variables that may have irreversible effects to the economy, and they are required to be handled with great caution