The solution
A December 2022 Fast Company article describes PharmaSwap. Dutch pharmacists had long swapped surplus medicines informally over WhatsApp groups and email. In 2019, Amsterdam pharmacists Jelmer Faber and Piter Oosterhof set out to formalize this as a marketplace with FLOOW2, a builder of B2B sharing platforms. Fast Company says the Netherlands wastes about $122 million of medication a year.
The platform verifies that a user is a pharmacist, lets them list surplus items, preferably two months from expiry, and agrees a price with a buyer; a courier then moves the goods. The hurdle was that it was illegal: under EU law only licensed wholesalers can sell medicines to pharmacists, and pharmacists can sell only to patients.
They started a secret pilot with 20 pharmacists to show authorities the problem existed. In six months it saved about $66,000. In September 2021 the Dutch Healthcare Authority admitted there was a problem but said the EU law was out of its hands, and offered a workaround: deal with patients, not medications. Now the buyer's prescription goes to the seller, who becomes the treating pharmacy.
Why it worked
Pharmacists already swapped drugs informally, so the demand was proven.
A small pilot gave authorities real data instead of an argument.
The regulator could not change EU law, but could point to a compliant flow.
Making the seller the treating pharmacy turns a wholesale sale into a normal prescription fill.
What can be applied
When a law blocks a transaction, look for the legal version of the same flow, and use real data from a small pilot to get a regulator to say what it is.
Aftermath
The platform launched fully in 2021 and, per the article, was set to expand to other European nations. Co-founder Lieke van Kerkhoven calls the new flow just a slightly different workflow.
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