Several pharmacists in Bavaria are being investigated because they are said to have illegally sold the corona drug Paxlovid abroad. “We can currently only speculate about the number of packs of Paxlovid that were embezzled,” said a press spokesman for the Bavarian Central Office for Combating Fraud and Corruption in the Health Care System (ZKG) in Nuremberg on Monday. “We are only at the beginning of the investigation. However, one or two investigations could already involve damage amounting to millions.”
The eight pharmacies in the focus of the investigation in Bavaria are said to have ordered up to 2,500 packs of the drug. The spokesman was initially unable to say on Monday how many of them might have been resold illegally. Around 70 investigators searched objects in Upper Bavaria, Middle Franconia, Upper Franconia and Upper Palatinate in mid-December. According to the information, they seized numerous documents. The suspects are presumed innocent.
According to information from WDR, NDR and “Süddeutscher Zeitung”, which previously reported on this, the Federal Ministry of Health filed criminal charges against pharmacists in more than 25 public prosecutor’s offices nationwide.
According to the ZKG, the Federal Ministry of Health makes the drug available to pharmacies free of charge for patients. However, it may not be resold to third parties. The accused are said to have not adhered to this requirement. They are therefore suspected of embezzlement and violations of the Medicines Act are also possible.
The drug Paxlovid is intended to protect patients from a serious course of the disease in the event of an acute corona infection. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) had high hopes for the drug in combination with vaccinations.
Paxlovid had been purchased in large quantities by the Federal Ministry of Health; a million packs were to be ready for 2022 alone, as it was said at the time.
