Community pharmacies

In Denmark, community pharmacies have exclusive rights to sell prescription-only medicines to consumers. Likewise, a great number of medicines that are not prescription-only must only be sold at pharmacies.

A Danish pharmacy is run by a private individual – the pharmacist – who has been licensed by the Danish state to run a pharmacy at a specific location.

The staff at Danish pharmacies is made up of pharmacists and pharmaconomists. Apart from selling medicine, pharmacies can therefore help people find the answers to most questions about medicine and the use of medicine.

As of 10 August 2010, there are 248 community pharmacies in Denmark, 18 of which are supplementary units. In addition, there are 68 branch pharmacies, 126 pharmacy outlets, 646 over-the-counter outlets and 201 medicine delivery facilities, all of which are affiliated with one of the community pharmacies.

You can find further information about the operation of Danish pharmacies in the Danish Medicines Agency’s annual publication “Undersøgelse over apotekernes driftsforhold” (‘Study of Danish pharmacies’ operational conditions’ – in Danish only), which you can download via the link in the factbox to the right.

EAN-number of the Danish pharmacy sector: 5798000362185.