Aytos council has closed the town's pharmacy, Avicena EOOD, and started a six-month liquidation. Councillors made the decision at a meeting on September 30, 2026, and it takes effect the same day. A roll-call vote ended with 20 in favour, 3 against and 6 abstentions.
The pharmacy had been running for almost 30 years. Councillors blame money problems, staff shortages and tough competition for the closure.
Councillors picked Lyubima Burgazlieva, a lawyer and qualified pharmacist, to run the liquidation. She has served two terms as head of the regional pharmacists' board, sat on the board of the Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union, and worked on expert panels on retail drug sales and relations with the National Health Insurance Fund.
Mayor Vasil Edrev must end the management contract with Dimitrina Kirisheva and sign one with the liquidator instead. Kirisheva will step down once the liquidation is entered in the Commercial Register, though she is not cleared of responsibility.
The trouble started on September 4, 2026, when Kirisheva asked the town for 20,000 euros to keep the pharmacy running. Two weeks later she gave notice that she was quitting as manager, and on September 18 she gave the council a report on the company's finances.
In August the pharmacy's turnover was 35,999.90 euros. It owes 29,000 euros to Sting AD, plus 247.40 euros to Sopharma AD and 638.38 euros in taxes. Its stock of medicines is worth around 28,000 euros. September's income covers wages, VAT, social security payments and part of what's owed to the supplier, but Kirisheva has not received her own pay for July and August.
Kirisheva told the council she inherited a company in poor financial shape, falling behind on payments to suppliers, with no working capital and staff problems. She even lent the company 4,100 euros of her own money to cover urgent costs. She is leaving, she said, because the pharmacy cannot run on the money it has.
Edrev drew a line between helping a company that can pay the money back and pouring public funds into one with no future. Officials have helped other council-run companies after working out they could repay it, and they did, he said. The council could have found the 20,000 euros asked for, but the manager said it would only last two months before she'd be back asking for more.
The mayor pointed to competition as the second big factor. One councillor said there are 19 pharmacies in Aytos; Edrev put the number at 20. "We're in a market economy, and everyone survives however they can. Competition is fierce, especially in our town," the mayor said.
Some of the town's pharmacies belong to large chains with centralised supply and bigger orders that a standalone council-run pharmacy can't match.
Avicena's staff was small, and when one employee suddenly went on sick leave, finding a qualified replacement fast turned out to be next to impossible. The pharmacy cut its opening hours and stopped opening on Sundays. Because payments were falling behind, its main supplier started demanding money upfront for every order. Orders shrank, the range of medicines on offer narrowed, and turnover fell.
Councillor Georgi Yanev defended the manager's work. He said that over the past year she had tried hard to turn things around, and that the council and the town had done everything they could to keep the company and the pharmacy going. "Sadly, what we're seeing is that time has simply run out," Yanev said.
Some councillors think the liquidation should have come sooner, since the crisis isn't down to one manager or the past few months alone. Councillors were already discussing Avicena's low returns 4-5 years ago, and tried various fixes to ease the pharmacy's workload. The council concluded that more financial help would only delay the problem, not solve what's causing it.
Avicena served a range of patients and made up medicines on-site, a practice that has nearly disappeared from the industry. That history made the council debate an emotional one.
Over the next six months the liquidator must settle the company's debts, deal with its stock of medicines and sort out matters with creditors. Winding up a pharmacy comes with its own rules covering leftover medicines and dealings with wholesalers and regulators.