The Commercial Court of Nanterre has decided to prohibit the online sale of medicines via the Doctipharma site. A decision hailed by pharmacists.
From now on, the Doctipharma site will no longer be able to sell drugs online. The subsidiary, belonging to the Doctissimo website, was dedicated to the e-commerce of drugs not subject to medical prescription. She sold nearly 3,000 of them. So in vain.
Deeming the activity of the site “illegal” and considering that the latter did not have “pharmacy quality, the Nanterre commercial court (Hauts-de-Seine) ordered the group to put an end to its practices.
The court decision is particularly pleasing to the UDGPO (groups serving pharmacists and public health), which recalls in a press release that “the commercial company did not have the status of community pharmacist and therefore could not exercise this activity, neither as a seller nor as an intermediary in the sale of medicinal products”. For the Lagardère group, owner Doctipharma, the decision “prohibits the possibility of developing a large French platform at the service of pharmacists”. The multinational has not indicated whether or not it will appeal the court decision.
A reduced online sale
The Doctipharma site had, in 2014, obtained authorization to sell nearly 3,000 non-prescription drugs. However, adopted since 2013, the law relating to the sale of medicines without medical prescription online only concerns pharmacists registered with the National Order. And for the sake of supervision, any such marketing had to be done by a pharmacy.
In France, the online sale of medicines remains very limited. In January 2015, only 1.4% of community pharmacies launched their website.As a result, the National Order of Pharmacists invites all e-commerce enthusiasts to consult the listing sites authorized by the ARS (Regional Health Agency).
Around the world, estimates the WHO, around 50% of medicines sold on the internet are falsified or counterfeit medicines.
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