Two pharmacy superintendents have been suspended from the register for six months for subverting manufacturer supply controls to sell on a cystic fibrosis drug.

Khalil Khaliq, registration number 2042410, helped his friend Yogesh Patel, registration number 2047018, exceed quotas of dornase alfa by supplying him with four prescriptions for the drug that had already been used, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) heard at a fitness-to-practise hearing on July 15. Mr Patel sold on the drug through his wholesaling business for a profit of around £8.50 per transaction.

The GPhC accepted that both pharmacists provided a "valuable and effective" service to their communities, had no previous disciplinary records and admitted to their actions at an early stage. The two pharmacists also said they had ensured the drug was not on the PSNC shortages list before making the requests and thought of the quotas as "just a business hurdle".

But the GPhC rejected their "quite unrealistic" assertions that they had not been dishonest in making the bogus requests to manufacturer Roche.

Mr Patel explained he was having difficulty obtaining enough supplies of dornase alfa for wholesaling use, as Roche's policy was to request anonymised prescriptions for the drug if pharmacists ordered more than two or three boxes of 30 ampoules in one month.

Mr Khaliq agreed to fax Mr Patel an anonymised copy of the prescription that he had already filled out for dornase alfa, to help him order more. Mr Patel then gave the prescription to Roche, which supplied him with the amount ordered in December 2011. He went on to resell the drugs as part of his wholesale business. This happened on three more occasions leading up to April 2012.

Roche noticed that the prescriptions had been submitted on more than one occasion and launched an investigation into the matter.

The GPhC also heard how Mr Patel's business had submitted one of the anonymised prescriptions to Roche on two occassions.

Both pharmacists admitted that they had used the prescriptions inappropriately, but denied they had acted dishonestly. Mr Patel rejected having a "concluded plan" with Mr Khaliq to mislead Roche, and said he was unaware that the company's procedures were there to establish patient need.

Mr Khaliq said he did not know the controls meant there was a quota on the drug and admitted he "did not think through the implications of what he was doing". He believed it was "common practice" to reuse prescriptions in this way for wholesaling, he claimed.

The GPhC accepted that the two pharmacists were "genuinely remorseful" about what they had done. It also noted that the two superintendents were held in high esteem by their communities, who testified to their generosity and usual high standards and said they ran "excellent businesses".

But the GPhC ruled that both pharmacists "knew exactly what they were doing" and had intended to deceive Roche for Mr Patel's financial gain. The regulator said it was "a pity" they had not accepted the dishonesty involved in their misconduct, which it believed was due to shame and embarrassment over their actions.

The GPhC handed both pharmacists six-month suspensions. It deemed there was no need for a review at the end of the period, as they would both come to a "true and adequate degree of insight into what they did".

Read the full determination here.

	What do you make of the ruling?