India does not have any separate laws for e-pharmacies. These still follow the D and C act, of 1940.
BENGALURU: Despite increase in the number of e-pharmacies in India, the Drugs and Cosmetics (D&C) Act is yet to bring about any updated guidelines regarding e-pharmacies.
Currently, there is no law for E-pharmacy companies in India to regulate the safety of the consumers and operations of these e-pharmacies, except for the Draft Rules that are pending approval, so, the e-pharmacy companies follow offline legislation. The Drugs and Cosmetics Act also regulates import, manufacture, and distribution of drugs to ensure the delivery of safe, effective, and quality medicines across the nation.
The D&C Act, of 1940 states: A pharmacy requires a pharmacist to have a valid license and a registered premise to safely store and sell the drugs. Therefore, e-pharmacy companies will only be able to operate in India if they have a physical store.
However, e-pharmacies like Medlife, Myra Medicines, and CareOnGo do not have any physical premises.
There are more than 50 companies that provide online pharmacy services in India. Reports show that the preference for usage of e-pharmacy among people increased from 23 percent in 2013 to 59 percent in 2018.
Varaprasad Rao G.K., a retired legal officer from (not sure what New India means here) New India, said, “When the Drugs and Cosmetics Act was formulated, the concept of e-commerce was not introduced in India. However, there should be new acts for regulating e-pharmacy services.”
Praveen Sarilla, a quality assurance associate at Laurus Labs Ltd. Vizag, said, “Not every patient is aware of the drugs they need to take which can lead to misuse.” For example, if a person has been prescribed a 2000 mg (milligram) tablet from a specific company and they cannot find that medicine, then there are chances that the person might order the same medicine from a different company. In such cases, one should check the chemical formulation of the medicine which every person is not aware of.
He further said, “At times, due to lack of awareness, people might also order a higher dosage of medicine, which makes the person resistant to the actual medicine they should use. In the future, if that person needs the medication, then the medicine will not work on the person due to resistance.”
A research on e-pharmacies states that, “The lack of proper rules and regulations has profoundly affected the overall market growth of the E-pharmacy sectors in India. The current D and C Act requires a pharmacist to have a valid license and a registered premise to safely store and sell drugs.”
However, people still order from such e-pharmacy apps and websites. Praveen said ordering online has made the availability of medicines easy for everyone, which may lead to more self-medication.
“Though the applications and the websites have the option to upload a doctor’s prescription, there is no verification of the prescription in the app or website. There should be a step between uploading the prescription and payment, that is verification of the prescription,” added Praveen.
