Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs: Open Access

E-pharmacies Regulation in India: Bringing New Dimensions to Pharma Sector

Abstract

Priyanka VP and Ashok BK

Buying drugs/medicines online is the latest trend amongst the Indian patients and consumers. With this increasing trend of buying medicines online, number of online pharmacies also increase. But there is lack of proper regulatory checks and balances for exercising regulatory control over e-pharmacies. This eventually leads to flourishing of e-pharmacies like mushrooms. There are several other factors also which fuel the gearing up of epharmacies like increased number of netizens, long term illness patients and increased chronic diseases. As we all know India is the country of youngsters and they are spending more and more time on internet through mobile or computer. Due to the advancement of technology, access of drugs through Internet is very easy for common man. Numbers of internet users in India have been increased continuously since 2000. This is the high time for the epharmacy model to grow with the drastically increasing netizens, smart phone users and patients. E-pharmacies business is growing very fast in India although its mechanism of regulation is not decided yet. The success of the model is not guaranteed in shaky and cloudy regulatory regime but its graph is going higher day by day. There is lack of proper and clear laws for e-pharmacies. The laws governing Pharmacies in India are derived from Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940; Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945; Pharmacy Act, 1948; Indian Medical Act, 1956 and Code of Ethics Regulations, 2002 etc. E-pharmacies come under the purview of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and the Information Technology Act, 2000. But current Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 doesn’t distinguish between online and offline pharmacies. It seems e-pharmacies may not abide by these regulations and bypass them. Regulatory authorities finds it difficult to control, monitor and track sell of drugs via internet as there is lack of clear guidelines in India regarding the same. E-pharmacy may be proved as dangerous trend in future if not regulated properly.