Author: Luiz Fernando Buainain

Source: Diário da Manhã - GO - 31/08/2009

Three years after the launch of its experimental phase, the electronic invoice (NF-e) brought much more than modernization to all sectors of the Brazilian economy. In addition to ensuring security and greater efficiency in business transactions, the use of the digital document has provided an improvement in the activities of companies that transcend the accounting and financial area. The Brazilian pharmaceutical wholesale is an excellent example of the benefits that the new technology can bring. The distribution of medicines is an activity that requires challenges in Brazil. With continental dimensions of 8.511.965 km², divided into 26 states and one Federal District, which together total 5.564 municipalities, almost 60 thousand pharmacies, in addition to clinics and hospitals. Amid large numbers that involve the sector, the distribution of medicines lacks tools that contribute to the better functioning of its activity.

The implantation of the NF-e is one of them and immediately ensured benefits such as the reduction of paper consumption due to the reduction of Danfe routes in relation to invoices and the space to store them as an archive. Also because it is a State policy, the NF-e balanced the competitive practices, since all the actors involved in the process have to follow the same legal norm. Looking more specifically at the wholesaler, some of the great contributions of the digital document were the reduction in truck stopping time at Border Fiscal Posts, the elimination of the entry of invoices at the reception of goods and the reduction of bookkeeping errors. All of this helped the sector to face challenges inherent in the distribution of medicines in Brazil. Cargo theft is one of the issues that most affect our activity. The reduction in downtime at tax points with the use of the NF-e certainly contributed to greater security in the transportation of these products, so targeted by gangs. The NF-e also meant an important step to sustain the implementation of the drug traceability system, which is expected to be implemented by January 2010 and will restrict the spread of counterfeit products and the marketing of stolen drugs. Traceability will guarantee the safety of the medicine from the industry to the pharmacy and assure the consumer of the product's suitability.

The system also promises to facilitate the collection of a batch of medicine from the market when necessary, since traceability will make it possible to know where a particular medicine is. Also with regard to consumer health and safety, traceability enables strict control of all goods entering and leaving the industry, passing through distributors and arriving at pharmacies. Thus, there will be full control in the sale of medicines with black stripe, for example.

After eight months of implementing NF-e in the pharmaceutical chain, the advantages are clear. More modernization, efficiency in document management and more security for consumers. All of this can be seen in these months when the 23 members of Abafarma - Brazilian Association of Wholesale Pharmaceuticals use the digital tool - 5% of the total NF-e issued in the country today are from the drug distribution sector.

In view of the excellent adaptation of the sector to the new technology, the intention is to further improve it. In the near future, we expect to eradicate counterfeit drugs, informalities and cargo diversion, among others. In the end, positive point for consumer health.

Luiz Fernando Buainain is President of Abafarma - Brazilian Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesale