Amend Drugs and Cosmetics Act to promote e-pharmacy in India

With the advent of e-pharmacy, there is a need to amend the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 as it does not differentiate between offline and online pharmacies. The government is seized of the issue and is working towards amending the existing law to develop a framework where the consumers are benefitted, said K B Aggarwal, additional secretary (food and drugs), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, while launching a report on e-pharmacy by FICCI in New Delhi.

E-pharmacy allows easy availability of drugs at all hours. However, there are concerns with respect to legitimacy of e-pharmacies, patients’ safety and privacy, misuse of e-pharmacy and adverse effect on retailers business.

Aggarwal said, “There is a need to create e-pharmacy guidelines which allow proper tracking and monitoring of sales of drugs, authenticity of online pharmacists and prescriptions, details of patients, thereby helping in reducing drug abuse and counterfeiting. Linking a person’s Aadhar number with e-pharmacy would ensure correctness of person seeking medicines.”

According to him, for ensuring privacy and confidentiality of information, deliberations were taking place and soon the suggestions will be put up for further discussions among the stakeholders. He added that the DCGI was working towards developing its online platform and the system should be stable by the end of December 2016.

Dr S Eswara Reddy, joint drugs controller, Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), informed, “The government is working towards drafting a new Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 2016 to meet the current regulatory requirements related to safety, efficacy and quality of drugs. For the government, pharmaceuticals is a priority sector, therefore it was critical to ensure that its regulations are strengthened. There should be a standard format of prescriptions.”

E-pharmacy is one of the technology advancements that is about to create a huge demand in the upcoming days. “There was a huge demand for access models that help patients and consumers avail the convenience of medicine delivery without having to leave their homes. With the use of technology and access to inventory of multiple stores at a time, e-pharmacies can aggregate supplies, making otherwise-hard-to-find medicines available to consumers across the country,” opined Jayant Singh, director, Frost & Sullivan.

According to Dr Manisha Shridhar, regional adviser, World Health Organization (WHO), for sale of online drugs, in the EU legitimate online pharmacies have to carry a logo and India can learn from their processes and create its own logo for e-pharmacy. “There is a need to work on direct to consumer (DTC) as with emergence of e-pharmacy many issues will emerge that would need to be deliberated upon,” she said.

Arvind Gupta, founder & head, Digital India Foundation, stated, “There is a need to look at e-pharmacy sector in a comprehensive manner keeping in view the entire healthcare chain. The Aadhar number should be integrated when a person seeks drugs from e-pharmacy to monitor drug abuse and its misuse. There is a need to standardise labs to create digi lockers where the patients’ records are safely documented for reference by doctors.”

Stating that digital tracking and monitoring will take Digital India forward, Prashant Tandon, founder & CEO, 1MG, and core member, FICCI e-commerce committee, said, “The Drugs and Cosmetics Act does not address many concerns, hence incremental steps are required to ensure access to quality medicines at affordable price.”