New regulations on online drug sales

Psychotropic drugs and traditional Chinese medicine formula granules will be banned from sale

According to the previous Prohibited List of Drug Online Sales (Draft for Comments), vaccines, blood products, narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, toxic drugs for medical use, radioactive drugs, pharmaceutical precursor chemicals, preparations of medical institutions and traditional Chinese medicine formula granules are explicitly prohibited from online sales of drugs by policies and regulations. Other drugs prohibited from retail through the Internet, including injections (except for hypoglycemic drugs), compound preparations containing ephedrine (excluding Chinese patent medicines containing ephedra), and varieties with high risk of drug use, are prohibited from selling through the Internet.

The insiders pointed out that the Measures revealed that the regulatory attitude tended to be strict and standardized, and at the same time, they followed the "principle of consistency between online and offline" of business supervision, and made more strict and specific provisions on the separate display of online prescription drugs, prescription before drug, and ensuring the authenticity of prescriptions.