Prescription drugs – online: pros and cons

Since March, an experiment on the remote sale of prescription drugs has been launched in Moscow, the Moscow and Belgorod regions.

The corresponding three permits for online trading were issued by Roszdravnadzor, however, literally from the first day in the expert community, this experiment causes diametrically opposite assessments. As it turned out during the discussion that began at a press conference in DOS, some experts believe that this good undertaking will make medicines more accessible to the population and it needs to be scaled up throughout the country as quickly as possible, while others are convinced that this will lead to uncontrolled the sale and indiscriminate use of prescription drugs, which can lead to serious health consequences.

Thus, a supporter of the first point of view, pharmaceutical market expert Nikolai Bespalov, believes that so far the implementation of this experiment, even in these three regions, is deliberately slowed down by some lobbyists, behind whom, perhaps, are representatives of offline pharmacy chains:

“The fact that several permits have been issued is, of course, no start in the online sale of prescription drugs. This may be just the beginning of this process. But it is premature to say that this system has already started working. And in general, the format that was chosen was deliberately chosen in such a way as to delay the launch of a full-scale remote sale of prescription drugs as much as possible. In fact, we are talking about delaying the process. Speaking in general about my attitude to the need for the online sale of drugs, then I am completely in favor here, for the simple reason that the availability of these drugs is a very serious social problem. This also applies to certain categories of citizens who find it difficult to physically reach the pharmacy; this also applies to some remote settlements where there are simply no pharmacies. The fact that the online sale of medicines still does not work normally in our country seriously limits the rights and opportunities for the treatment of individual citizens. I’m not talking about the fact that since there is a demand for such a service and it is not normally satisfied, various “gray” services flourish, which, although regulators are trying to fight, is a very difficult task. Until we properly launch a system of distance selling, it is virtually impossible to fight such a “shadow” segment.”

In contrast, clinical pharmacologist Alexander Ediger, an advocate of an alternative point of view, believes that online sales of prescription drugs are harmful and dangerous:

“A prescription drug that can be ordered online and obtained anywhere in the country is no longer called a prescription drug, since in this situation no one regulates its prescription and consumption. In this situation, the status of prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, and even dietary supplements become just fiction.”

All this, according to Alexander Ediger, can lead to uncontrolled consumption of prescription drugs.

The third participant in the discussion, Pavel Lisovsky, an economist and expert on the pharmaceutical market, spoke about how the introduction of distance selling could affect the entire drug supply system:

“Remote trade allows not only to quickly find the necessary drug, but also to deliver it quickly. That is, we improve accessibility and convenience for some customers. But it does increase the risk of uncontrolled use of prescription drugs. On the other hand, if this initiative were launched nationwide, I fear that we would have collapsed: if we had to go to the doctor to write an electronic prescription, we simply would not have enough specialists and the number of hours, which they can allocate to issue these prescriptions. But the most important question for this experiment is the difference between a paper prescription and an electronic one. The fact is that an electronic prescription always leaves some kind of electronic “trace”, and if a doctor has now written an ordinary prescription for you, then you and the doctor know what disease you have and what drug you need to take, and the pharmacist who got this recipe. And if we create an electronic system, there is an additional risk associated with the fact that somewhere there is information with the name, surname, age of the patient and what drugs he uses. You yourself understand what a medical secret is, that it has a level of secrecy and a level of sensitivity no less, and perhaps even more than that of a bank secret. And I think everyone knows how banking databases are “leaked” onto the Internet. That is, there is another very serious risk. In addition, in the current model of the experiment, it is assumed that the operator who will store all this data will receive some percentage of sales, and this will ultimately place an additional financial burden on the buyer.

That is, as always happens in life, any seemingly obvious plus is often associated with an unobvious minus, and maybe more than one, and when making a choice, making decisions, it is important to keep in mind this whole complex system of “balances” …

Sergei Ishkov.

Photo by Sergey Kiselyov / Moskva agency