REPORTED MERGER.

Wairarapa Age, 1 August 1936, Page 5

REPORTED MERGER.

WHOLESALE DRUG HOUSES OF DOMINION. COMPREHENSIVE PLANS PREPARED. LICENSING OF CHEMISTS SUGGESTED. AUCKLAND, July 31. According to statements made in the trade, a scheme has been prepared for a merger or association of the wholesale drug houses in the Dominion, which it is proposed to call the Associated Drug Houses of New Zealand. An essential part of the scheme, which will be submitted to the Government, is that retail chemists should be licensed, the idfa of such a proposal being to prevent the starting of a new business where it is not considered desirable in the public interest. Under the scheme the prices of prescriptions and drugs would be put on a firm basis, but while questions of mass buying and selling are important features, there are many other aspects dealing with organisation. It is understood that the idea is that licensed chemists should confine their buying, so far as is possible, to the wholesale group of suppliers, while it is thought that protection will be sought from the Government to prevent the sale of chemists’ lines by other than registered chemists. When approached regarding the matter, Mr. E. Smith, vice-president of the New Zealand Pharmaceutical Society, said any scheme was merely in the nature of proposals. All the information he would give was that chemists had been asked to put their house in order and they had done so. Some such scheme as is detailed above has been anticipated as a result of the recommendations of the Industries and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives early in June last, and the direct advice of the Minister of Industries and Commerce (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) to chemists to reorganise their industry so as to give better service to the country. Mr. Sullivan then expressed the opinion that there was probably a good deal of room for improvement in the methods of business of the New Zealand wholesale houses and in the business of private chemists. Chemists would be given an opportunity to organise and secure the advantage of mass buying and mass business in the way that Boots (N.Z.) Ltd., an overseas firm, that had started operations in the Dominion, had done.—(P.A.)