Online selling of prescription drugs to overseas customers by a group of traders from India without drug licenses and prescriptions is posing a big challenge to the regulatory authorities in the country. It has been found that buyers largely from the US, Europe, Canada, Japan and some African countries, are placing orders for drugs like anti-depressants, anti-hypertensives, sildenafil citrate, etc. at the websites of these traders. The trading firms then send the consignments of these drugs by air couriers without obtaining the drug license and other permissions from the concerned authorities. A few other firms, however, possess drug licences and export clearance but found to be exporting drugs against invalid and fake prescriptions. Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration has recently detected this racket in the state and initiated action against some of these operators. The state FDA officials claims to have seized medicines stocks worth Rs.2 crores from 28 locations in Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune during the past three months and issued orders to these companies prohibiting such sales. Detailed investigations into this activity are going on and it is quite possible that this illegal online trade of medicines might have spread to many parts of the country. As of now more than 20 such trading companies are found to be operating in the country. Sales of drugs without license and prescription is in contravention of Section 18 C and 18 (a) (6) of Drug &Cosmetics Act and can attract penalties under Section 27 (b) and (d) of D&C Act ranging from 3 years imprisonment or fine upto Rs 10,000 or 5 years imprisonment or fine above Rs. one lakh.
One of the reasons for the steady growth of this illegal activity from India is the lower price of drugs sought by the overseas clients. In the developed countries these drugs are much more expensive than India and have to produce prescriptions to buy them. And online procurement of drugs from India is rather recent phenomenon and is not known to many state regulatory authorities. The products sold by the online traders could be of not of standard quality as the whole business is illegal. This fast growing illegal trade of medicines from India can thus seriously affect the reputation of the country as India is already major supplier of quality generics to the world markets. And that calls for a nationwide drive to eliminate this activity with coordination and support of various Central and state agencies such as Drugs Controller General of India, Director General of Foreign Trade, Customs Department, state drug licensing authorities and the police department. DCGI needs to issue an alert to all the state drug control departments to keep track of such activities in respective states as a first step.