Online pharmacies may soon be regulated

The government is considering regulation for selling medicines online, according to Mint.

The health ministry along with the pharma regulator Central Drug Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) have started discussions on creating a framework for the proposal.

While as many as 50 online pharmacy start-ups sell medicines in India, the government’s proposal to regulate the market will give a stamp of official approval and remove ambiguities surrounding the legality of such sales.

But traditional chemists are against the practice of selling online as they believe that such easy access to drugs would eventually be abused.

The regulation will be introduced under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and will bring the sellers under a fixed guideline and purview of the law.

According to the article, the draft rules in the regulatory framework categorises medicines into five schedules based on the risk that the drugs poses for users and the chances of them being abused.

Drugs under the fifth and sixth schedules are not to be dispensed multiple times unless it has been prescribed for the same. Regarding such drugs, the authorities are also considering if pharmacists should stamp the prescription as "dispensed" once it has been used and then register the data so that unauthorised or repeated use of the same prescription could be avoided.

For fifth or sixth schedule drugs, the websites would need to register the patient and record their name, address and Aadhaar number.

An extra safety net has been formed around sale of such drugs. Even the cash or card memo for buying such drugs would bear the name of the doctor and their registration number along with the patient’s address. But these have not been finalised yet.