Get the diagnosis right

E-commerce is once again in the news for the wrong reasons, with Maharashtra’s Food and Drugs Administration filing an FIR against the CEO of Snapdeal for facilitating the sale of prescription drugs. So, is an aggregator responsible for the quality of a product or service, or does that responsibility lie with the seller? Snapdeal has been booked under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and the Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act for selling and advertising prescription drugs, whereas the company could, and will, argue that it is not a seller. The product in question was sildenafil citrate, better known as Viagra, sold under the brand name Vigora 100; the 'aggregator' is Jasper Infotech and the ‘seller’, or at any rate one of them, was Mittal Pharma of Kota, which used the online platform. The Drugs and Cosmetics Act requires the seller (and not aggregator) to have a wholesale or retail licence for selling prescription drugs. Indeed, there are numerous off-line chemists who have branched out into the net but are required to demand a prescription before dispatching the medicine. Snapdeal, by choosing to be a drugs aggregator, has taken a huge risk, given the kind of stuff that is peddled as medicine. But to accuse it of cynicism and complicity, as opposed to oversight, would perhaps be going too far. What is needed is a legal framework for e-commerce that delineates the rights and immunities of sellers and aggregators, in keeping with existing consumer-oriented laws.

The potential of e-commerce in pharma should not be underestimated given the high distributor margins. Yet, watertight regulations are needed to ensure that online platforms are not misused, inadvertently or wilfully, to harm consumers. India could learn from the US experience in regulating online transactions — a subject keenly debated there, covering the role of players as diverse as Amazon and Uber. It is, of course, another matter that the online sale of dubious drugs precedes the arrival of online retail giants on the Indian scene. About a decade ago, the drugs inspectorate in Tamil Nadu cracked down on the sale of Viagra and other medicines of a psychotropic nature.

While e-commerce needs a set of rules, a bigger problem is the lack of quality control and globally recognised standards in the pharma industry, for which India has earned some disrepute in recent times. The drugs inspectorate remains woefully ill-equipped in terms of the quality and number of trained personnel. And the Indian Medical Association on occasion functions like a trade union that shields doctors from consumer reprisals rather than as a responsible guild. The initiative taken by a body of Indian dermatologists to caution consumers against the use of high-steroid skin creams, sold across the counter if not on the net, is more the exception than the norm. An improved ecosystem for both pharma and e-commerce will leave all stakeholders better off. Before that happens, let’s not shoot the messenger.

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