The Health Ministry is drafting a regulation on online pharmacies in a bid to contain sales of unlicensed medicines.

Under the draft regulation, only licensed offline pharmacies, drug wholesalers (PBF) and drugstores would be allowed to establish e-pharmacy businesses, said the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency’s (BPOM) distribution and service monitoring director, Hardaningsih.

"By allowing those who have offline drug-selling licenses to run online stores, we can easily monitor both businesses," she said during a seminar about counterfeit goods held by Pelita Harapan University in Jakarta.

According to the draft, medicine sales through social media and blogs would also be prohibited to minimize the distribution of counterfeit drugs, said Hardaningsih, adding that e-pharmacy players should only sell drugs that were allowed to be distributed in Indonesia.

"The regulation will also regulate the issuance of e-prescriptions, so that a doctor’s prescription cannot simply be captured with a camera and sent through WhatsApp," Hardaningsih said.

The draft also contains rules barring the delivery of drugs by ordinary delivery services, apparently to ensure the right drug goes to the right person.

"E-pharmacy players must take responsibility until the delivery [to the customer] is completed. If they use Go-Jek or some other online transportation app, something may happen during the delivery process," she said. (bbn)