You run a pharmacy, and you want to stop two things that quietly drain money: boxes that reach their expiry date on your shelf, and items that are missing the day a patient asks for them. Both come from the same cause. The pharmacy does not know, item by item and batch by batch, what it holds, when it expires and how fast it sells. This article walks through the steps that fix that, in the order a pharmacy can do them, using what the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) and the Ministry of Health decree actually require. It is general information, not legal or medical advice, and it contains no dosing.
Where the money goes
A pharmacy loses money in three ways, and they pull in opposite directions:
- Expired stock. You paid for it, you cannot sell it, and it must be kept apart until it is returned or destroyed.
- Out-of-stock items. The patient goes to the pharmacy next door, and sometimes does not come back.
- Over-buying to avoid the second problem. This feeds the first one.
"Stock management" is the habit of breaking that triangle. Everything below is a step toward it. Numbers in this article marked "illustrative" are examples to show the arithmetic, not benchmarks.
Step 1: Keep a record per item and per batch
A shelf total ("we have about 20 boxes") cannot tell you what expires first. The minimum useful record for each received line is: the item, the batch (the batch number printed on the pack, called "تشغيلة" in Egyptian regulations), the expiry date, the quantity, the supplier, the invoice number and your cost.
This is not only good practice. The Ministry of Health decree that sets the health requirements for pharmaceutical institutions (Decree 380 of 2009) calls for a computer program to keep records, prescriptions and the data of the institution, and for keeping the invoices and documents showing incoming and outgoing medicines for at least five years.
Check the expiry date when the goods arrive, not later. The EDA's storage and distribution guide, written for storage and distribution facilities, says products must not be received after their expiry date. A pharmacy can reasonably adopt a stricter rule of its own, for example refusing anything with less than a set number of months left unless the supplier agrees to take it back.
Step 2: Sell the earliest expiry first (FEFO)
FEFO means "first expired, first out". It differs from FIFO (first in, first out) because a box that arrived later can carry an earlier date. The EDA guide states that stock rotation should follow FEFO, and WHO's guidance on good storage and distribution practices (Technical Report Series 1025, Annex 7) uses the same principle.
In practice:
- When you shelve new stock, put the earlier expiry in front, whatever the arrival order.
- Where the system offers a batch at the moment of sale, sell the earliest one.
- Never "tidy" a shelf by pushing old boxes to the back.
Step 3: Build an expiry watchlist with tiers
A list of what expires in the next few months is the single most useful report in a pharmacy. Use tiers, and give each tier an action. The thresholds below are illustrative; adjust them to your sales speed.
| Tier | Meaning | Action |
|---|---|---|
| 6 months | Early warning | Stop reordering that batch; move it to the front |
| 3 months | Act now | Ask the supplier whether they accept an exchange or return; check how many you can still sell |
| 1 month | Last chance | Decide: sell through, return, or move to the expired area on the date |
| Expired | Out of use | Remove from the shelf the same day |
Be careful with discounting. Check what the rules and your supplier agreements allow before you change a price on any item.
Step 4: Set reorder points and low-stock alerts
Running out is usually a timing problem, not a quantity problem. A reorder point is the stock level at which you place the next order:
Reorder point = average daily sales x supplier lead time (days) + safety stock
Illustrative example: an item sells about 3 boxes a day, your supplier delivers within 2 days, and you want one day of safety stock (3 boxes). The reorder point is 3 x 2 + 3 = 9. When stock reaches 9, order. If you also decide never to hold more than a week of sales, order up to 21.
Two cautions:
- A low-stock alert is only as good as the sales data behind it. If sales are not recorded at the counter, the alert fires late or never.
- A high maximum is a decision to accept expiry risk. For a slow item, the quantity you can safely order is limited by its remaining shelf life: if you sell one box a month and the batch has four months left, a box of ten will leave six to expire. For slow items order the smallest pack your supplier offers.
Step 5: Count stock regularly, and chase the difference
Records drift from the shelf: unrecorded sales, wrong item scanned, returns not entered, breakage. The EDA guide asks for periodic reconciliation of actual and recorded stock, for finding the root cause of any discrepancy, and for checking stock at regular intervals to spot items approaching expiry.
A simple routine for a pharmacy:
- Weekly: count a small group (the fastest sellers and the highest-value items) and compare with the system.
- Monthly: run the expiry watchlist and check every item in the 3-month tier by hand.
- Quarterly: count one section of the shelves completely.
Illustrative example: the system says 14 boxes and the shelf has 12. The difference of 2 is the start of an investigation, not an adjustment to type in. Look at today's sales, unentered returns and a mis-scanned neighbour item first. If the same item is short every time, the cause is a process, not bad luck.
Step 6: Handle expired and near-expiry stock correctly
Decree 380 requires a separate place, away from valid products, for expired products until they are destroyed or returned to the producing company under approved documents and in coordination with the competent health authority, with a sign reading that expired medicines must not be used. It also requires safe disposal of pharmaceutical waste.
Two further points from the EDA:
- In 2025 the EDA chairman issued Decree 47 on withdrawing expired products along the supply chain, with a regulatory guideline. It set out a documented route: the responsible pharmacist lists the expired items, stamps each pack, hands them to the distributor against a signed receipt form, and the distributor returns them to the owning company. Check the EDA website to see whether a withdrawal round is open for you.
- The storage and distribution guide, again written for storage and distribution facilities, requires returned goods to be quarantined, inspected and recorded, and says damaged or expired products should not be kept more than a year from the date the damage was noted or the expiry date.
Keep a log of everything that moves to the expired area: item, batch, expiry, quantity, cost, and what happened to it. That log is also the best evidence for which suppliers send you short-dated stock.
Step 7: Storage conditions
Spoiled stock is lost stock, and the decree is specific here. The pharmacy must keep temperature and humidity within what the product specifications state, with a visible thermometer and hygrometer and readings recorded at fixed intervals; the temperature must not exceed 30 degrees Celsius. Products that need lower temperatures go in a refrigerator with a freezer compartment equipped with a thermometer, with readings recorded. Narcotic and psychotropic medicines need a safe and secured place. For a pharmacy's accessory store, EDA Decree 271 of 2021 adds a humidity limit of 65 percent, shelves at least 45 cm off the floor, and stock at least 20 cm from walls and 60 cm from the ceiling.
Write the readings down at the same times every day. A paper sheet is fine; a record in the system is better, because it survives an inspection.
A weekly checklist you can copy
- Receive: check batch and expiry against the invoice before shelving.
- Shelve: earliest expiry in front.
- Alerts: review items below their reorder point and place orders.
- Expiry: review the 6, 3 and 1-month tiers and act.
- Count: one small group against the system.
- Temperature: readings recorded every working day.
- Expired area: log updated and returns to suppliers arranged.
What to ask of pharmacy software
Whatever you use, test these on a real item before you rely on it: Can I enter the batch and expiry on receiving? Does it suggest the earliest batch at the counter? Can I see everything expiring in the next 90 days? Does it alert before an item runs out? Can I count a section and see the variance? The companion article Choosing pharmacy software in Egypt covers the wider checklist.
The next step
This week, take your ten fastest-selling items and your ten most expensive items and write down, for each: the batches on the shelf, their expiry dates and the reorder point from the formula above. That one page will show you where the next loss is coming from. Softwiro builds MyClinic (Sehaty), a health platform in which a pharmacy tracks stock per item and receives an alert before an item runs out. If you want to see whether it fits how your pharmacy works, contact us and ask for a demo.
Sources
- Ministerial Decree No. 380 of 2009, health requirements for pharmaceutical institutions — Egyptian Ministry of Health, hosted by the Egyptian Drug Authority. Storage temperature and recording, refrigerator, secured place for narcotic and psychotropic medicines, separate area for expired products, computer records and five-year retention of invoices.
- Regulatory Guide for Good Storage and Distribution Practices (GSDP), 2025 — Egyptian Drug Authority. FEFO rotation, regular expiry checks, stock reconciliation, quarantine of returns and handling of expired products (written for storage and distribution facilities).
- Regulatory guideline for EDA Chairman's Decree No. 47 of 2025 on the withdrawal of expired products — Egyptian Drug Authority (Arabic). The documented route for returning expired products along the supply chain.
- EDA Decree No. 271 of 2021, accessory stores of pharmaceutical institutions — Egyptian Drug Authority. Temperature, humidity and shelving requirements for a pharmacy's accessory store.
- TRS 1025, Annex 7: Good storage and distribution practices for medical products — World Health Organization. The international reference for stock rotation by first-expiry, first-out.