Wholesaler Sigma Pharmaceuticals has partnered with online marketplace Rxchange to relaunch its medicines exchange website sigXchange, with new features including the ability to highlight favourite traders on the site.

SigXchange allows pharmacies, wholesalers and manufacturers with Sigma accounts to buy and sell medicines to one another via a secure web service. The online marketplace is designed to help reduce stock wastage and financial risks and to redistribute drugs from pharmacies with excess to those in need.

The service acts as a "virtual warehouse" and, alongside buying and selling, it also allows users to locate hard-to-find items by flagging up a wanted medicine, which can then be delivered to the pharmacy free of charge using Sigma's existing distribution networks.

"If you are an individual pharmacist and want a certain medicine, this is one of the best ways to do it" Bharat Shah, Sigma

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New features include the ability to publish stock to private groups on the site and to adjust prices according to stock age or buyers. SigXchange has no subscription fee or charge for buying items – instead, there is a percentage sales fee for items listed for sale. The site could be a particular benefit to pharmacies given the stock shortage problems, said Sigma director and co-founder Bharat Shah.

"I think it will alleviate stock shortages to a certain extent, because people who cannot get it wholesale can go to the wanted list," he explained. "If you are an individual pharmacist and want a certain medicine, this is one of the best ways to do it."

SigXchange first launched in 2009 and the revamp is a result of collaboration with Rxchange – a pharmacy-to-pharmacy online marketplace for trading stock between registered UK pharmacies.

Revealing the relaunched website, Mr Shah was quick to assuage concerns that the MHRA's recent decision to repeal section 10.7 of the Medicines Act 1968 – thereby removing pharmacies' ability to sell medicines to other healthcare providers without a wholesale dealer licence (WDL) – would throw sigXchange into jeopardy.

Mr Shah said Sigma had confirmed with the MHRA that pharmacies without WDLs could continue to trade medicines as long as they confirmed that medicines were purchased to meet patient needs and not would not be traded on.