Status of E-pharmacies in India: A review

Abstract

In the recent years, with the revolutionary advancement in the internet services have fueled the online purchasing practices of various commodities. Online purchase of medicine is also increasing consistently due to introduction of various online pharmacies in India. These online drug stores provide the people with various advantages like home delivery of medicines, huge discounts and lucrative offers. Despite these benefits to the customers the safety concerns related to these E-stores are also on rise. For instance, the medicine quality, irrational dispensing, lack of supervision are the prime concerns arisen from these e-pharmacies. However, this trend with proper regulations is quite popular in western world but it has been recently adopted in India. So, in this review article we have discussed the various factors affecting this practice in India population. Although, E-pharmacies are providing the convenience for the patients to buy medicines but still they are lacking proper regulation for their operations. For this purpose the national guidelines are required to be framed by the regulatory agencies in order to ensure the rational use of drugs.