Ahead of the general elections, the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) has written a letter to the Bharatiya Janata Party national president J.P. Nadda seeking a ban on the online pharmacies. The letter noted that e-pharmacies pose a serious threat to public health and serve as a gateway for counterfeit medications in the country. “Allowing them to continue could lead to the monopolisation by big corporations and chains. In the interest of public health and to protect the younger generation from drug abuse, the government should ban e-pharmacies nationwide,” the letter said.
J.S. Shinde, president of AIOCD said that the online pharmacies are operating illegally as they don’t have the license to sell drugs under Drugs & Cosmetics Act 1940 & Rules 1945. “While the current regulations don’t permit the sale of medicines through the Internet, the 2018 notification introduced by the ministry of health and family welfare, which allowed the online pharmacies to operate, hasn’t been approved by the government yet. We demand that such illegal selling of drugs should be stopped,” he said.
Last month, the government has asked the Delhi High Court to grant some time to prepare a specific policy for the online sale of medicines since it involves modifying a bunch of existing rules.
Since last year, the e-pharmacies have been at the receiving end. For instance, in August, the Delhi High Court had directed the central government to take action against those involved in the sale of drugs online without a license. Previously in February 2023, Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) had reportedly issued show-cause notices to 20 e-pharmacies such as Amazon, Tata 1mg, Flipkart for violating the regulations as they were selling and distributing drugs without a valid licence.
Shinde said that e-pharmacies are selling medicines below the manufacturing costs because of the large institutional funding. “Even in the products where the trade margins are 15-20%, online pharmacies are giving discounts of 30-35%. The predatory pricing of e-pharmacies distorts the market and threatens the livelihoods of our members,” he said.
Though industry experts said that the online pharmacies are no longer giving steep discounts as was the case a few years ago. This is due to the slowing down of growth post-pandemic. As per Datum Intelligence, the online sales of medicines through e-pharma platforms declined by more than 4% in 2023 despite the sector getting large investments from Tatas, Reliance, and Flipkart.
Also, on the matter of predatory pricing, experts said that the government has categorically refused to interfere. “In the past, we have seen that NPPA has refrained from interfering in the deep discounting issue citing that such commercial decisions are not under the scope of the current rules,” said Anay Shukla, founding partner, Arogya Legal.
