digital health
patients get the medicines they
are prescribed, and the medicines
are safe and only under a
prescription. “Presently, it takes a
few hours and visits to multiple
pharmacies to get all the
medicines in the prescription
which is very inconvenient for our
patients and would be much
easier if someone could make
them all available at 1 place”, said
Dr Aggarwal.
The argument put forward is that
a sick or elderly patient should
not have to put in any effort to
access. So the home delivery
model, as long as it comes with a
copy of a doctor’s prescription
sounds like a very convenient
model. The convenience factor of
e-Pharmacy takes out the
dependence of patients on
another person, with the nuclear
family set up and chronic
diseases, lot of times elderly
patients feel helpless. This will
also help to find medicines which
are not easily available.
Clear regulations necessary for
consumer empowerment
Mr Bejon Mishra, the leading
voice of the consumer, feels that
consumers need genuine quality
medicines at an affordable price,
choice of different channels – and
comfort around the safety of
medicines. He thinks that D&C is
the most poorly implemented act
and makes consumers vulnerable
especially to counterfeit
medicines and self-medication.
As per his view, the E-pharmacy
model will give the consumer an
additional channel to purchase
their drugs. Consumers want
choice, convenience and
affordability. It will bring more
competition and challenge the
status quo. There is full tracking
and recording of the entire trail.
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BioVoiceNews | August 2016
“IIndia has suddenly seen an
epidemic of chronic diseases
where patients need to take
regular medicines. We can’t
deny that the home delivery of
medicines is a reality. There is no
tracking and is happening over
the phone. It can be very risky
and puts consumers at a lot of
risk. The consumers want choice
and empowerment, the Government should come out with the
guidelines for the ePharmacy sector as early as possible"
-- Mr Bejon Mishra , the leading voice of the consumer
However, Mr Mishra suggests that
the government should come up
with a registry of the legitimate
online pharmacies for consumers
to identify the legitimate players.
“India has suddenly seen an
epidemic of chronic diseases
where patients need to take
regular medicines. We can’t deny
that the home delivery of
medicines is a reality. There is no
tracking and is happening over the
phone. It can be very risky and
puts consumers at a lot of risk. Mr
Mishra further added that
‘’Consumers wants choice and
empowerment, the Government
should come out with the
guidelines for the ePharmacy
sector as early as possible”.
Legal compliance required
to separate fakes from
serious players
According to Mr Vaibhav Kakkar,
Partner at Luthra & Luthra, the
ePharmacy model in India
presently operates in compliance
with the legal frameworks and
also suggested safeguards to
strengthen the act further. He
mentioned that under the current
Act, there is enough comfort on
the legal validity of the model and
the Indian courts would take a
practical view of ePharmacy, in
line with present technologies and
spirit of the law which will be
favourable for ePharmacy.
Mr Prashant Tandon, CEO and
Founder of 1mg mentions that the
sector needs a lot of support and
entrepreneurs need to be
encouraged to solve the many
problems that exist in the sector
today. He spoke about strong
interest groups and vested lobbies
trying to ensure that there is no
transparency, but ePharmacy is
an idea whose time has come and
India is embracing this model. He
also mentioned that a group of
progressive ePharmacies call IPA
has shared their
recommendations on best
practices that the Indian regulator
should adopt, and as a group they
look forward to productive
engagement with the regulator to
help make the Indian pharmacy
sector a model sector that works.
Most of the stakeholders agree
that the ePharmacy is a reality
and the regulator needs to take a
positive and proactive approach
to make sure the right players are
enabled, while the potential for
abuse is also addressed.