An International Guideline for the Preparation, Care and Use of Medicinal Products
The core role of a pharmacist is and has always
been to supply the patient with the most appropriate medicines according to
their needs. Patients have differing needs. Not all patients fit the ‘normal
profile’ upon which the efficiencies of scale allow the pharmaceutical industry
to mass produce medicines. A significant proportion of patients require
medicines to be specifically made to suit their needs.1 The pharmaceutical art
of preparing medicines should be seen in the social context of guaranteeing the
availability of necessary medicines to patients. The Council of Europe
Resolution on pharmacy preparation2 considered the preparation of medicinal
products in pharmacies as indispensable for accommodating the special needs of
individual patients in Europe.
Another reason for preparing in pharmacies is the
fact that the pharmaceutical industry has become so international and many of
the smaller national industries have been swallowed up in the process that any
small effect on the supply chain leads to the observed shortages now felt in
all countries around the world.
For several years pharmacists in many European
countries have felt the need for knowledge, information and guidelines on the
practice of preparation in the pharmacy. This was clearly put forward by
experts from many European countries at the EDQM symposium on European
Cooperation and Synergy and at the BEAM compounding course.3 During this course
it was agreed that the knowledge for the preparative pharmacist were contained
in the Dutch book Recepteerkunde and that this book could be used as a base for
a European wide textbook on preparation in pharmacies.
The aim of Practical Pharmaceutics is to offer:
• Basic knowledge for undergraduate and graduate
pharmacy students.
• Practical knowledge on the design and preparation
of medicines for the pharmacists
responsible for preparations in community and
hospital pharmacies.
• Basic knowledge for the Qualified Person (QP) in
industry and all pharmacists involved in
quality assurance.
• Product knowledge for all pharmacists working
directly with patients, to enable them to make the appropriate medicine
available, to store medicines properly, to adapt medicines if necessary and to
dispense medicines with the appropriate information to inform patients and
caregivers about product care and how to maintain their quality. This basic
knowledge will also be of help to industrial pharmacist to remind and focus
them on the application of the medicines manufactured.
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