[2026 update] Availability by country, dated, with primary sources

On post #11 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.

Reading this Availability thread as someone who came in with a fixed view: the third and seventh replies moved me and the confident ones did not.

Picking up post #15: that is the part I would want checked first.

Language matters for finding primary sources. The authoritative document is usually not in English and the translation usually is not authoritative.

That is one dataset and I would not build a rule on it.

Where a compound is approved under a different trade name in another market, searching the local name finds documents the English name does not.

I would be glad to be shown a cleaner way of putting this.

Post #15 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.

Regional stock in your own country removes the border question entirely, which is the reason it changes the calculation rather than just the timing.

I would put the burden of proof on the interesting explanation, not the dull one.

Insurance and coverage: coverage decisions are national. A compound approved in one country might not be covered by insurance in another. Checking both approval and coverage is necessary.

A single observation, in a thread that deserves better than single observations.

Regional practice around what a pharmacy will and will not do varies enormously and is not deducible from the regulatory position.

The short answer was in the first line; everything after is the working.

On Availability: the maintained page in the documentation commons covers the general case with citations and a review date, which is more reliable than any reply here including this one.

Post #20 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.

Availability, approval and reimbursement are three separate questions and a country can be in a different state on each.

Where I part company with post #22, and it is a narrow parting.

The question underneath Availability is usually "how would I tell?" rather than "what is true?", and that one has a method attached to it.

Write down what you would expect to see under each hypothesis before you collect anything. If they predict the same observation, collecting it will not help.

Picking up post #24: that is the part I would want checked first.

Language matters for finding primary sources. The authoritative document is usually not in English and the translation usually is not authoritative.

Customs practice varies between entry points within the same country, which is why two people in the same jurisdiction report different experiences honestly.

The confident version of this sentence would be wrong, so here is the hedged one.

Answering the Availability question as asked, then the question I think is meant. As asked: yes, with the qualification below. As meant: it depends on how the first measurement was taken.

I had written a reply contradicting post #26 and deleted it. Here is what survived.

Nobody has said the unglamorous part of Availability yet, so: most of the variation is explained by things that are boring to write about and easy to check.

Regional stock in your own country removes the border question entirely, which is the reason it changes the calculation rather than just the timing.

No notes. Posting so the count is not one.