There will be no Amazon of medicine

There will be no Ebay or Amazon of the drug. The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, affirmed this before the senators as part of an exchange on the bill for the acceleration and simplification of public action. Article 34 concerns the online sale of medicines. The notion of “platform” will be deleted from the text.

Authorized sales for 7 years

Selling drugs on the internet has been authorized in France since 2013. Only pharmacists are authorized to do so and the sales site must be affiliated with a pharmacy. Each Regional Health Agency (ARS) grants authorizations on its territory. The regulations only allow the sale of drugs without a prescription.

The public action acceleration and simplification bill intends to make the system more flexible. Pharmacies will no longer be required to obtain prior authorization from the ARS. The “perimeter of possible locations” should also be widened, which means that pharmacies could group together to create a common site.

Pharmacists worried

“The government has never intended to move towards online drug sales platforms such as Amazon or othersdeclared the minister in front of the senators, the text (Bill) provides that this activity must remain the sole responsibility of the community pharmacist.” Olivier Véran wanted to reassure pharmacists.

In The Parisianthe president of the Union of Community Pharmacists expressed his fears about this bill: “With this text, we are paving the way for the uberisation of the pharmacy. Tomorrow, if Amazon wants to partner with one or more qualified pharmacists, it will be able to do so and start selling drugs online. We are moving to the stage of the commodification of drugs against which we have always fought.” According to data from the Union of Community Pharmacists’ Unions, more than 90% of pharmacists declared themselves against the creation of platforms detached from pharmacies.