India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has mooted the idea of an electronic platform for regulating the sale of medicines in India, and has begun a public consultation to accept comments regarding this proposal. Comments may be sent to epharmacy.drugs-mohfw@gov.in before the 15th of April 2017. A brief summary of the proposal: 1. The portal: An online platform for regulating the sale of drugs in India will be developed, which will be maintained by an autonomous body under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The revenue model proposed for this portal involves a small transaction fee of not more than 1% of total cost of medicines, subject to a ceiling of Rs 200 per prescription, to be paid online by pharmacies/ e-pharmacies/ wholesale /retail distributions, etc.", as well as a "small amount of registration fee and renewal fee for manufacturers/ pharmacies/hospitals/ clinical establishments, etc." 2. Distributors and Manufacturers will have to register and upload data: All manufacturers and distributors will have to register themselves with the portal. Manufacturers will have to enter data relating to the sale of drugs to distributors with a batch number, quantity supplied and expiry date of the batch, while distributors will have to enter details of stocks received and supplied by them to other distributors or retailers. 3. Retailers/pharmacists will have to register and upload data: It will be mandatory for all new pharmacies to register and pay a fee. Existing pharmacies will get a transition period of two years for registration with the online…
