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In Germany only doctors can prescribe, but there's a big class of pharmaceutical products that can be sold without a prescription, but only by at pharmacies (e.g. not at a supermarket or convenience store). The vocationally trained pharmacy worker ("technician") can do that selling as well I think, but a university trained ("pharmacist") is required in a supervisorial role (e.g. the "technician" level cannot run their own pharmacy, not even a chain branch).

Much of the university requirement is a bit of an anachronism because a lot of the underlying reasoning is nominally based on the scenario of pharmacists manufacturing their own drugs in the backroom, but fortunately there seems to be a lot of political agreement that opening up requirements for theoretical efficiency gains would only enrich aggressive investors without making health noticeably cheaper.



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