[simon32]

Container transport is extremely well organised. I had some aircraft parts shipped from Oregon USA to France. The container was loaded and sealed in Oregon and transported by truck to Tacoma near Seattle where it was loaded onto a container ship, which sailed via Vancouver, ports in Japan and Taiwan to China. The container was transferred to another ship at Ningbo and made its way to Marseille via Singapore, the Suez canal, Greece and Italy. Throughout this 3-month period I could track it on the internet. It was transported by truck to an airfield near Toulouse where I helped unload it. The seal was intact and the contents looked exactly the same as the photographs taken on departure from Oregon. Customs duty was paid on the declared value of the contents with no inspections as far as I could tell.
Simon

[LowNSlow1]

Top 10 drugs/medicines exporters: http://www.worldstopexports.com/drugs-medicine-exports-country/

Top 10 drugs/medicines importers: http://www.worldstopexports.com/international-markets-for-imported-drugs-by-country/

UK imports $19.9 billion and exports $19.7 billion of drugs/medicines. Pretty much a zero balance then.

Another way of looking at it is that the UK imports 37 million packs of medicine from the EU but exports 45 million packs to the EU/EAA https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45047874

[LowNSlow1]

Here are some hints:

https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/brexit-stockpiling-no-deal-list-advice-what-food-goods-stockpile/

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2019/09/what-new-statesman-team-stockpiling-ahead-no-deal-brexit

[PaulB]

UK imports $19.9 billion and exports $19.7 billion of drugs/medicines. Pretty much a zero balance then.

It matters what they are though, doesn't it? If all cancer meds are imported (just an example, I've no idea of the proportion) then that would be quite bad if they were delayed.

Did people notice that RoI exports more than we do? I wonder what proportion of our imports of meds from the EU come from RoI?

[PaulB]

Another way of looking at it is that the UK imports 37 million packs of medicine from the EU but exports 45 million packs to the EU/EAA https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45047874

That number doesn't sound credible at first thought.

[LowNSlow1]

PaulB I assume we import stuff that is more expensive per unit than we export.

[PaulB]

Here’s an interesting story about an issue that caused worldwide drug recalls of blood pressure medicines and lead to shortages.

It demonstrates that the manufacture of medicines a a global multimillion $ industry and that meds may be licensed in one country but contain components from more than one, and how hard this is to regulate.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... st-the-fda