28 January, 2016, Bangalore: A Bangalore based online delivery medicine startup, Practo may come under the scanner of DCGI. The company, whose services are currently available only in few places in Bangalore, claims that it follows the norms very strictly. It delivers the medicine to the users having an original prescription issued by a registered medicinal practitioner.
However, in June 2015 The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) was elected as the nodal to consolidate and decide the guidelines for online sales of medicine through ecommerce. To tighten up the screws, Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) released a notice in which it mentioned to take strict action against epharmacies which are violating the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and Rules by selling the drugs without the proper prescription. The drug control administrations of the state governments and union territories quickly came into the action and started monitoring the business of epharmacies.
In order to explain its working, the Practo team stated that the company has tied up with over 2,00,000 doctors and its working is very much within the limitation DCGI norms. But the company has declined to share any further details and stated that it will share the rest of the information during the official launch of its service.
Recently, the company has added a new feature in its armoury. With this app, customer can order the medicine online without any hassle. For the medicine marked as ‘RX’, user needs to show the prescription at the time of delivery and for other majority medicines, user needs to upload an image of the prescription on to the company’s website. However, the feature is still in beta testing stage and it will be launched once it is ready.
Commenting on the development, company’s spokesperson said, “Several months ago, we had stated our intent that Practo will also solve the medicine and pharmacy aspect of the healthcare experience. In line with that we are currently running a pilot in limited areas of Bangalore. We believe that with an end-to-end integration across Practo’s platform, which has 200,000 doctors and 10,000 hospitals we can provide a uniquely seamless experience to consumers. We also believe that our model addresses the concerns raised by the various stakeholders in recent times.”
