The long-awaited morning-after pill would be available in pharmacies in the coming weeks, a leading medicine importer said yesterday.
A spokesman for Neofarma Pharmaceuticals said the application to have the contraceptive licensed had already been submitted and he expected the pill to be available very soon.
“I can confirm that the morning-after pill should be available in two weeks’ time or, at the latest, three weeks,” the spokesman said.
Neofarma Pharmaceuticals already imports another form of contraceptive – the coil – which also contains levonorgestrel, the same active ingredient found in the morning-after pill cleared for licensing.
The spokesman said the importer had applied for a licence from both the Maltese Medicines Authority and the EU watchdog, adding that the European regulator had already given the green light since the product was eligible for centralised authorisation.
The morning-after pill should be available in two weeks’ time or, at the latest, three weeks
In the meantime, he went on, the guidelines on how the contraceptive would be dispensed, expected to be issued by the Medicines Authority, should also be readily available to pharmacists.
In June, when news of the possibility of the introduction of the morning-after pill first hit the headlines, the importer had immediately expressed interest in dispensing it in Malta. At the time, the spokesman had said that it made “no sense” that other contraceptives containing the same ingredients were readily available on the market and the morning-after pill remained unavailable.
Following a months-long heated debate, the Medicines Authority announced it would not only be authorising the sale of the contraceptive but it would also allow it to be sold over the counter.
The decision came after a parliamentary committee had recommended that the pill would only be sold against a prescription, This angered doctors who argued they should be the ones to decide whether or not the pill should be prescribed.
The Medicines Authority chairman, Anthony Serracino Inglott, had argued that the House committee had based its stand on information supplied by the Medical Council, insisting that the efficacy of the contraceptive was not taken into consideration when the recommendation was made.
The debate on whether the morning-after pill should be made available was initiated by the Women’s Rights Foundation, which had filed a judicial protest against the State calling for it to be licensed.
Some had slammed the move as an attempt to legalise abortion in Malta, with pro-life activists arguing the contraceptive itself was abortive.