©M.Depardieu/Inserm

Online sales of medicines have been permitted in France since 19 December 2012. The online sale of medicines will now become strictly regulated in order to avoid any trade in counterfeit goods.

The order that came into force on 12 July 2013 specifies that sites that are entitled to sell medicines online must be the “virtual extension” of a physical pharmacy which is itself authorised. Notices of each medication (specifying the doses, usage precautions, etc.) must be available online and be printable.

The list, which has been judged to be too restrictive by the Council of State and the Autorite de la Concurrence, contains 450 medicines but has now been extended to any medication that does not require a medical prescription.

Marisol Touraine, Minister of Health, reaffirmed that “prescription medicines cannot be sold on line in order to avoid both counterfeiting and to ‘reassure’ the French people”.

For more information: Maryse Lapeyre-Mestre, of the Inserm unit 1027 “Pharmacoepidemiology”.

And you can read the paragraph about the cyberpharmacy in the collective expert report “Psychoactive drugs : consumption and drug dependance” (page 61 à 69) (available only in French)