Left-over Omeprazole - where/how to sell?

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Foxford

Foxford

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I helped a friend at the yard buy some omeprazole for her horse as she was exhibiting ulcer symptoms. She decided to go online, as the cost of buying it came in under the cost of a scope/an excess. However, she later found out that there was un underlying cause that was reulting in ulcer-like symptoms. As a result we have loads of left over omeprazole and no horse to use it on!
Firstly, I was hoping if someone could tell me if it was legal to sell it on and secondly, where would you advertise it? I guess I could contact the supplier and see if they'll do a partial refund but thought there may be a simpler way of getting rid of it.
Any ideas appreciated!! :)
 
hi probably not advisable to try and sell it on as you need a license to supply medicines. best advise would be to take it to your local chemist and they will dispose of it appropriately.
Q. Following a course of treatment, what should I do with any left over medicine?

A. There will be instructions on the product label. If you obtained the medicine from your veterinary surgeon, return it to him/her for safe disposal, otherwise place the medicine in the rubbish bin ensuring that animals and children cannot reach it. There may be special requirements for some medicines for food-producing animals e.g. sheep dips.

Q. If I have obtained veterinary medicines can I sell them?

A. It is an offence to sell veterinary medicines (except AVM-GSL) unless you have a licence to do so, for example a registered pharmacists, veterinary surgeons, agricultural merchants and registered saddlers. To supply a veterinary medicine other than by retail, requires a wholesale dealer's licence.
 
Thanks very much - I thought this might be the case but wasn't sure where to find out!

I guess I will contact the supplier and see if they will take it back.
 
Foxford said:
Thanks very much - I thought this might be the case but wasn't sure where to find out!

I guess I will contact the supplier and see if they will take it back.
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I doubt they would - how do they know you haven't contaminated it with something (not that you would of course but they have to cover themselves)
I work for a company that supplies specialist medical feeds, once it's been over the patient's threshold if it gets returned it can't be re-issued to anyone else as we can't guarantee it's still safe.
 
It was illegal to buy it in the first place and it is illegal to sell it. I suggest you get this thread pulled as you have already admitted to breaking the law :(
 
According to the supplier it was purchased from it was legal - otherwise I wouldn't have done it! Not a problem, now I know I'll sort it out. There are plenty of others on the forum who buy it, potentially not from legitimate suppliers!

In answer to little critter, yes I know that is always a problem with any meds. Just look at the Nurofen scandal from last year!!!
 
Unless you had a prescription from your vet then it was illegally bought Im afraid. Its a Prescription only medicine in the UK.That includes if you buy in from america etc.. still not ok regardless of what their laws are. Its the region the buyer is in that counts.
You cannot for example buy medications legally over the counter in the North of ireland and use them in the south if they are prescription only in the south....annoying but its the way it works.

So ya....if they told you otherwise I am afraid you were lied to....dont believe me just google Omeprazole and selling in the UK....and I would be questioning the legitimacy of the company that was willing to take that sort of risk...dispensing prescription medications without a license....more than a little illegal and for good reason!

Selling on prescription only medications is also a nono im afraid.

also just curious about your username?is it related to your horse or an area... its a town name that I am familiar with :P
 
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cptrayes said:
It was illegal to buy it in the first place and it is illegal to sell it. I suggest you get this thread pulled as you have already admitted to breaking the law :(
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I would concur with most of the above replies, however, in my opinion the thread should be left to allow it to be investigated by Trading Standards and the VMD.

The pertinent points are:

It is illegal to purchase prescription only medication other than from a veterinary surgeon or a licensed veterinary supplier.

Omeprazole tablets should only be prescribed via the cascade if no licensed form of Omeprazole is available. In the UK Omeprazole (Gastrogard) is licensed.

The fact that other users of the forum may be using an unlicensed product only compounds the VMD's concerns about the supply of illegal medication and is certainly no justification in any way. In fact, the continued availability of effective medication may well be compromised by actions like this.

You may be interested to know that a Yorkshire farmer was fined £3,250 and given 120 hours unpaid community service last week for purchasing unauthorised veterinary medical products via an illegal website.

I would suggest that if you are going to flagrantly break the law that you don't flaunt this in the public domain.

It is tempting to think that the original post is a wind up. If so, then I've been had! Sadly I suspect that it's not.....
 
rhino said:
Oh I think it's genuine, 'pop rocks' seem to be becoming as trendy here as in the US now :cool:
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Sorry - sounds like I've had a sense of humour bypass. Just makes me really mad that people think that it's OK to play around with POM medication without any thought of either the potential dangerous implications of doing so or the longer-standing concerns that , in doing so, they may be compromising the ready availability of licensed products.
 
To be honest I dOnt understand the need to order it online. Surely it's easy enough to get a prescription from the vet which can then be taken to a pharmacy one parole costs peanuts on a private script x
 
*Omeprazole. woops if the vet feels it would be helpful then even if it is not licensed for use in horses the vet can use there clinical judgement and issue a prescription
 
samsbilly said:
To be honest I dOnt understand the need to order it online. Surely it's easy enough to get a prescription from the vet which can then be taken to a pharmacy one parole costs peanuts on a private script x
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Are you in the US?

In this country to get Gastrogard, which is Omeprazole, you would need to have the horse scoped first, at a cost of about £150 and then the treatment costs around £500.

Ordering it from abroad costs £120 to treat the horse, which is why people have done it even though in this country it is illegal to import omeprazole.


I know that they had to recoup the costs of testing it in horses, but they did not have to discover the drug in the first place, and it really would help stop this illegal trade if Gastrogard did not cost four times as much as a seller in the US manages to supply it via airmail to Britain and still make a profit :(

Does anyone know when the licence for Gastrogard runs out and other people can market generic omeprazole for use in horses?
 
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hi no i am in the uk. i work in pharmacy so thats why i said about seeing if a vet can issue a prescription after the horse has been scoped. Can't get my head round how it is that expensive for the generic when a box of omeperazole costs about £2 for 28. I know that some vets aren't happy to issue prescriptions for people to take to pharmacys but surely if a horse needs treating its a good option if an owner struggles to afford the treatment. a bit of point sorry
 
Treatment dose for a horse is 800mg a day, and maintenance dose 200mg. Human omeprazole over the counter was very expensive for 10mg tablets last time I looked it up.
 
samsbilly said:
hi no i am in the uk. i work in pharmacy so thats why i said about seeing if a vet can issue a prescription after the horse has been scoped. Can't get my head round how it is that expensive for the generic when a box of omeperazole costs about £2 for 28. I know that some vets aren't happy to issue prescriptions for people to take to pharmacys but surely if a horse needs treating its a good option if an owner struggles to afford the treatment. a bit of point sorry
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I think you are mistaken with this. GastroGard is £30 a syringe, hence why folk are tempted to source it cheaper online. There really is a tiny amount of Omeprazole in the syringe.
We had a horse that needed a Flixotide inhaler - £60- via the vet or via private prescription. Over the counter in Spain £28 same drug , same mg, same manufacturer etc.
 
YasandCrystal said:
I think you are mistaken with this. GastroGard is £30 a syringe, hence why folk are tempted to source it cheaper online. There really is a tiny amount of Omeprazole in the syringe.
We had a horse that needed a Flixotide inhaler - £60- via the vet or via private prescription. Over the counter in Spain £28 same drug , same mg, same manufacturer etc.
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You've hit the nail on the head with that Y&C

People break the law like this because as long as they can trust that the drug is genuine ( a big if, I know) then if it is available over the counter in a country with well developed drug controls, like Spain or the US, the risks seem tiny in comparison to the amount of money involved. To deliver the amount of omeprazole in the £30 syringe costs £4 by illegal import. You can hardly blame people for doing it when the drug is in widespread use and demonstably safe for use in humans and horses.

It does look dreadfully like profiteering, and it's the same with wormers - illegal to import the same tube of the same drug made in the same factory and on sale for half the price :(
 
Even at that dose of omeprazole it would still work out less to source from a pharmacy on a veterinary prescription. I didn't realise gg had other ingredients in
 
I take it back just worked out how much we would have to charge for a months supply on the maintenance dose and it would work out more than gg sorry I didn't realise that the required dose was quiet so high. Something's do work out cheap getting them through a pharmacy.
 
samsbilly said:
Even at that dose of omeprazole it would still work out less to source from a pharmacy on a veterinary prescription. I didn't realise gg had other ingredients in
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Does it? I think the rest is just a filler to make you think you are buying more than you are.

My understanding is that the only active ingredient is omeprazole and that it may contain something to stop it being deactivated in the stomach before it is absorbed. The "fake" supplies have an enteric coating to do exactly the same thing.
 
samsbilly said:
The patent on gg runs out April 2015
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Well hopefully by then human omeprazole will be on the supermarket shelves like ranitidine is now, and then people will stop being held to ransom for GG.

Meanwhile, anyone who didn't realise that it was illegal to import omerprazole, it is not illegal to buy ranitidine from Tesco, and it does the same job, but not quite so effectively. It is also routinely used in horses in the US for ulcer treatments.

It is, though, illegal to diagnose your horse for yourself, so talk to your vet first about giving ranitidine if you cannot simply cannot afford Gastrogard and have not already got an ulcer diagnosis.
 
Ranitidine has a slightly different action than omeprazole Which is a proton pump inhibitor so basically turns the tap down on the acid production. Te over the counter ranitidine is much lower strength than the prescription only med
 
samsbilly said:
Ranitidine has a slightly different action than omeprazole Which is a proton pump inhibitor so basically turns the tap down on the acid production. Te over the counter ranitidine is much lower strength than the prescription only med
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It doesn't matter what strength is in each tablet, though SB, you just give as many tablets as needed to dose the horse at the right amount per kilo of horse. And if it's the difference between a horse with a sore stomach getting treatment or not, then being able to buy it off the shelf legally is a real bonus. If people have read this thread and realise that they must stop buying omeprazole, then at least they have a fallback to a drug that works, even if a bit less effectively. In horses, I understand that the key difference is that ranitidine is much shorter action and has to be fed more often.

Must emphasize again though, peeps, you need to talk to your vet if you think your horse may have ulcers.
 
samsbilly said:
I take it back just worked out how much we would have to charge for a months supply on the maintenance dose and it would work out more than gg sorry I didn't realise that the required dose was quiet so high. Something's do work out cheap getting them through a pharmacy.
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It's the concerntration of Omeprazole in GG that's much much higher than the human equiv.

I agree I hate the profiteering. This is exactly why so many don't scope their horses for ulcers, because if you cannot afford the £800 worth of GG there is no point in doing it. Rantacidine for what it's worth would work just fine - it does inhibit acid BUT it is only effective for a few hours so unless you are prepared to feed youir horse every 3 or 4 hours Rantacidine and throughout the night for a month - forget it. GG is unique in that it is long acting and lasting. Actually those new timer feed dispensers would work wouldn't they in the stable!!! Just a thought. Ibought Rantacidine via ebay - that is not a controlled drug.
What the manufacturers of GG don't tell you is that it kills off all the good bacteria in the horse's hindgut, by allowing undigested food to pass through the hindgut for the duration of the treatment. If you do not address this hind gut fauna imbalance your horse will remain with discomfort.

Sorry just realised repeating much of what cptrayes said above!
 
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