Pharmaceutical Supply Chain

When ings Go Bump in the Night • 115

for all the returns for the retail or wholesale distributor client and creates

a debit memo, sometimes referred to as an invoice.

Disposition on the retail side of things is determined at this point. If the

product is eligible to be returned for credit, either by policy or by law, then

the product will be shipped back to the manufacturer or the manufac-

turer’s contracted reverse distributor. When this debit memo is issued, the

product becomes the legal property of the manufacturer.

e concept of shipping, though, at this point is a misnomer. First,

ifthe manufacturer’s contracted reverse distributor is one and the same

as theretailer’s or wholesale distributer’s, then the product will simply

be held f ...