The pharmaceutical industry has nothing to do with how many pharmacies will be allowed to operate. In Greece, up until recently, the government controlled how many pharmacies will open and where. Pharmacies ought to be owned by pharmacists. If say, a company wanted to open a chain of pharmacies all over the country they couldn't, unless all shareholders were pharmacists. And that's not all of the story, super markets for example weren't allowed to sell under the counter drugs like food supplements because there were exclusively handled by pharmacies.

This changed, partly, just in 2016 and it changed due to the agreements enforced by the memorandums we signed with lending parties.

The same applies to numerous professions, like notaries, taxi owners, customs agents, law firms, tour guides etc. That's what I mean by saying that the economy isn't competitive.