PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department on Thursday notified amendments to the Drug Rules 1982.

A statement issued here said that Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had approved the amendments, which were aimed at making the laws at par with needs of the present time. It said that under the rules a person running a medical store or pharmacy besides having a licence from the department concerned would also need to be a pharmacy graduate or diploma holder.

It said that only pharmacy graduate and licence holder would be allowed to engage in wholesale business. It said that the pharmacy graduate or diploma holder and licence holder’s presence would be necessary during the opening hours of the medical store, pharmacy or wholesale store.

It said that the amended rules bound the pharma companies to supply medicines to only those outlets, where trained, qualified and licence-holder employee worked.

Under the rules, the medical store, pharmacy or wholesalers have to display the certificate of qualification at a prominent place in their outlets. The rules would make it binding on them to build their establishments as per the given specification. The pharmacists would not be allowed to sell certain types of medicines without a doctor’s prescription.

The medical stores would have to install green signboards with white writing, pharmacies red signboard with white writing and wholesalers blue signboard with black writing on it.