Online Sale of Drugs in India

Context: 

Recently, the Ministry of Health pulled up at least twenty companies including Tata 1mg, Flipkart, Apollo, PharmEasy, Amazon and Reliance Netmeds, by issuing them a show cause notice, for selling medicines online. 

Image Source: The Hindu

Is banning e-­pharmacies a viable option?

• The acute need for door step delivery of drugs was felt during COVID­19. The year of 2020 marked a watershed moment for the growth of pharmacies as the Ministry of Home Affairs issued orders for them to continue to operate.
• The demand for online delivery of drugs is burgeoning. There is a possibility that some of these businesses will go underground if banned.
• The multiple court orders including those from Bombay, Madras, Delhi and Patna High Court have called for regulating e­pharmacies. 
• The Parliamentary Standing Committee report released in June last year, which found it ‘appalling,’ that e­pharmacy rules had not been notified even after four years of the draft being introduced.

How are e­-pharmacies competing with mom ­and ­pop chemist shops?

• Flush with billions of dollars of private equity money to infuse, e-pharmacies started offering hefty discounts on medicines in a bid to garner more market share.
• Companies like PharmEasy, in a move to circumvent retail chemists are building a supply chain from the ground up by buying out big and small wholesale drug distributors like Ascent Health, Desai Pharma, Eastern Agencies Healthcare.
• For acute care and emergency, patients still rely on their neighbourhood pharmacy stores. This has led e-­pharmacy players to now open capital intensive brick and mortar stores.
• Stiff competition has forced mom and pop pharmacists to also offer home delivery options to their customers by introducing their own store apps.

News Source: The Hindu