Panic buying or good adherence? Increased pharmacy purchases of drugs from wholesalers in the last week prior to Covid-19 lockdown

AIMS: The aim of this study was to examine the development of drug purchases during the corona crisis. METHODS: The evaluations in this retrospective cross-sectional study are based on the IMS RPM® (Regional Pharmaceutical Market) Weekly database, which shows the weekly purchases of public pharmacies from fully-stocked wholesalers at the time the pharmacy purchase is made in Germany. The outcome of this investigation was the development in psychotropic, neurological, and cardiovascular drug purchases by packing unit between Calendar Weeks 6 and 16. RESULTS: In analyses, performed for psychotropic and neurological drugs, compared to Week 11, the largest increases in Week 12 were for anti-Parkinson drugs and tranquilizers (both 24%), followed by antiepileptics (23%). Purchases of antidementive drugs increased by 16% between Week 11 and Week 12. The increase was 43% for vitamin k antagonists, 39% for ACE inhibitors, and 37% for betablockers. CONCLUSION: The results of this retrospective cross-sectional study suggest that the Covid-19 lockdown in Germany was associated with a significant surge in purchasing behavior in pharmacies for different markets including psychotropic, neurological, and cardiovascular drugs. Further studies are needed to investigate the sell-out data and to estimate the differences in panic buying by age and sex.