The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has released 'Self-regulation Code of Conduct' for the e-pharmacy sector in the presence of key stakeholders in New Delhi recently.

The e-pharmacy model provides tracking and traceability of medicines, addressing the problem of counterfeit medicines, consumption of drugs without prescription, tax loss and provides value added services for consumer empowerment in healthcare, which are well aligned with Digital India initiative of the Prime Minister with a vision to transform the country into a digitally empowered society.    

Accessibility, affordability and lack of awareness are the major challenges for last mile access to medicines. These barriers could be effectively overcome by adopting technology, specifically the Internet, into the healthcare system. Over the last one year, e-pharmacy has come up as a significant channel to provide last mile access to medicines. This will most importantly benefit patients of chronic diseases, elderly patients and sick patients who are not in a condition to go out to find a pharmacy, FICCI said.

Releasing the Self-regulation Code of Conduct, FICCI said that it is an attempt by the industry to adhere to the highest professional standards and to have proper safeguards so as to ensure that consumer’s health and safety is not compromised.

As per the new code of conduct, scheduled medicines must be processed only against a valid copy of prescription (physical or scanned copy) of a registered medical practitioner. On restriction of sensitive habit forming medicines, the new code says that e-pharmacy must ensure that no schedule X and other sensitive habit forming medicines are processed through their platform. Ensure there are adequate checks and balances in place to prevent sale of any such drugs.  Stating that the dispensation should be only from duly licensed pharmacy domiciled in India, the new code says that e-pharmacy must ensure that the medicines are dispensed through licensed pharmacies only. The  e-pharmacy must make reasonable effort to ensure that all the pharmacy partners (before facilitating the sale of any medicines through such pharmacy partners) are duly registered under the Drugs & Cosmetics Act/ Rules.

On convenient access of medicines, the FICCI Self-regulation Code of Conduct says that the e-pharmacy player must make suitable arrangements to ensure that the medicines are packed, transported and delivered in such a way that their integrity, quality, and effectiveness are preserved. It further states that the e-pharmacy players must partner with government for any recall of medicines and collect adverse events of medicines (consumer reports) and comply to submit them to National Centre for Pharmacovigilance.

On the issue of customer grievances, the code states that the e-pharmacy must ensure that there is a proper mechanism in place to address any queries or grievances that the end-customer may have. E-pharmacy players must appoint an ombudsman commission comprising of reputed members of civil society to address any public grievance. The Ombudsman commission shall be appointed for six months by members of the governing council in consultation with other stakeholders.