Beyond that, what is the incentive on the part of the company? No one is evaluating medications based on shelf life. Longer expiration dates -at best- do nothing favorable for the company, and at worst both reduce the purchase of more of the drug, -and- open the company up to litigation in the even it's dangerous. Why take that risk? There is simply no economic pressure to.

I don't think there's an economic pressure to have a longer shelf life either.

It's not any more efficient to stockpile drugs, and it doesn't make sense to do so, as your need for prescription drugs is likely not going to be multiple years.

Well, although supposedly the Army specifically liked Cipro because of the shelf life, so that's one case counter.

Here's a startup idea:

Develop an "indicator pill" that changes color at the same rate as an individual medication.

It would be in (or part of) the bottle with the other pills, and be customizable to react to humidity, temperature and time in the same way as the particular medication.

The main problem is that there just isn't data on how much these drugs degrade. The expiration date is based on some preliminary measurements and conservative guesstimates. Neither the FDA nor the drug companies really cares or wants to see these dates extended.

There probably is no data in part because there is no good way to use such data.

> Here's a startup idea:...

How feasible would that be for thousands of different drugs with hundreds of thousands of different formulations and chemical compositions and various storage factors ?

In fairness, about 200 drugs account for the majority of stuff sitting on Americans' countertops. No need to hit thousands to get pretty good coverage.

I don't understand your comment. You say they test at a controlled pressure, whereas conditions in the typical medicine cabinet vary wildly, and then say that that's why the drugs expire much earlier than they should.

Do you mean that varying conditions make medicines last longer? You can't mean that medicines would last much longer if stored in perfect conditions, because that's not expiring "earlier than they should", it's expiring exactly on time for the poor conditions they are kept in.

Can you clarify?

I'll chime in.

Most chemical processes happen faster with a higher temperature. Some drugs decay into harmful substances (e.g. Aspirin).

Other factors, such as humidity or UV, may play a part as well.

Rather than testing every permutation of storage conditions over time, manufacturers put a safety margin. Individual consumers aren't in a position to remember exactly how they treated any given container of pills. Even if the manufacturer knew how a given sequence of storage practices affected their drug, nobody would be the wiser.

Ah, I see, thanks.

Most medicines are sold in blister packs these days. Won't that prevent a fair bit of the environmental stress from affecting them?

> Most medicines are sold in blister packs these days. Won't that prevent a fair bit of the environmental stress from affecting them?

Well, it keeps out humidity, and might prevent air-exposure effects. It won't prevent heat effects and some other environmental effects.

Also, quite a lot are sold in bottles of pills or other non-blister-pack forms.

I live in France and cannot remember the last time I saw pills not in a blister pack.

I remember vaguely having seen pills in bottles maybe 20 or 30 years ago. Again this is for France, I know that e.g. in the US one gets refills.

Which by the way I find great because the waste of pills is tremendous. It would have been much better to get the specific number prescribed.

It is a waste of pills- but in many cases the marginal production cost of a pill is incredibly small. See generic asprin, many hundreds of pills for a few dollars at an ordinary grocery store. More than you need, but the packaging & marketing probably still costs more than the pills.

Over here, benadryl is the main over-the-counter drug I see in blister packs. They say it's to slow down the meth cookers.

I think you mean Sudafed. Sudafed is pseudophedrin, which is a great decongestant and used to make meth. In most states, you have to go up to the counter and ask for it, as well as supply ID and sign a form promising not to do anything illegal with it. Benadryl is diphenhydramine, which is just an antihistamine, and you can totally get in bottles (in the states). I tend to always have both on hand in case of an allergy attack. Granted, I'm more likely to reach for the Sudafed than the Benadryl. Benadryl has the side effect of intense drowsiness (I guess you can't sneeze if you're in a coma). I also buy a year's supply of Zyrtec and benadryl at Costco. It might seem like a "waste" but when you suffer from bad allergies, it really isn't.

I'm a long time pollen allergy sufferer living in the hell that is South Florida. I know my allergy meds.

That's not the reason. Benadryl being in blister packs long predates its use in meth cooking, like by 30 years. The real reason is more likely marketing. If they sold them in a bottle, the amount they charge for those few tiny pills would seem outrageous. A blister pack gives the packaging more volume.

This varies quite a bit throughout the world (I think). I've had both blisters and bottles in New Zealand/Australia.

Yeah, I think USA is atypical for bottles. I was surprised to see bottles of 1000 Tylenol* tablets at the CVS chain.

In Australia the only thing in bottles are vitamins and similar, though it is possible to get small bottles.

* acetaminophen / paracetamol

Most medications at the patient-level are in amber vials in the US (all pills loose). BUT there are still plenty of meds still further up the supply chain that are in tamper-evident packaging and could be donated if short-dated.

Great comment, and I couldn't agree more.