Online medicines, from the circular Ministry and web area with forms
Fedaisf editorial staff
The discounts on Sop-Otc that pharmacies and parapharmacies will sell online they must be the same ones offered in the real store. It is one of the indications that come from the circular released yesterday by the Ministry of Health to provide clarifications and instructions on the "non-prescription" e-commerce. An intervention that seals 48 hours of ministerial "hyperactivism" on the subject of online medicines: on Monday the publication in the Official Gazette of the decree with the specifications of the identification logo for the "web pharmacies"; yesterday, in conjunction with the circular, the opening on the Ministry portal of the dedicated area where to find instructions and forms to request the sticker to be sent.
Clear instructions on the procedure to follow: before contacting the dicastery, the pharmacy that wants to do e-commerce on Sop and Otc must first request authorization for online sales from its Region or Autonomous Province. And here the questions arise: the office to which to physically send the application should be identified by the Region itself with its own provision, but at the moment there are only a couple of administrations that have already done so; it is probable that the circular released yesterday by the Ministry will convince other Regions to get moving quickly, but there is the risk that not everywhere will proceed with the same diligence.
Stwould be a big problem, because from the tenor of the ministerial instructions it seems that without regional authorization the logo it will not be granted, and without the logo and website link to the Ministry's web list (where the authorized online pharmacies will be registered) it will not even be possible to start e-commerce on medicines. The Health circular writes it clearly, which in the last paragraph even goes ahead and anticipates the main rules that pharmacies will have to follow in online sales: as already mentioned, to begin with, no "special" discounts only on the web; on the commercial pages of the site, then, it will be possible to publish photos of the medicinal products, in their primary or secondary packaging, and the authorized indications and warnings may also be reported, but only in full. On the other hand, images and texts deriving from the advertising communication of the products are absolutely prohibited.
