I have tons of old medications from prescriptions that I never finished, or giant Costco bottles of Advil etc. A doctor that I know told me that the expiration dates mean nothing and that they are just Big Pharma’s way to insert some planned obsolescence into their products.
Is this true? If not, what actually happens to the medications after their expiration dates?
In: Chemistry
I’ve been in the business for years and can answer this from a supply chain perspective.
Most manufacturers have a program that allows pharmacies to “trade-in” the expired drugs in exchange for credit to buy newer drugs.
The pharmacies pack and ship their drugs to a reverse logistics provider ( almost always Inmar or PharmaLogistics). Inmar will count/verify the drugs and send it to a separate company for destruction. The DEA wants everyone involved to maintain a proper chain of custody for controlled substances. Each party in the chain returns a DEA 222 form to verify that drugs were properly received.
Inmar/PL also works as the aggregator between manufacturers, wholesalers and pharmacies to determine how much money is owed.
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